Blending Spaces: Mediating and Assessing Intercultural Competence in the L2 Classroom 9781614511236, 9781614511533

Table of contents :
Contents
1 Introduction: The interplay of languages, cultures, and minds
2 First language acquisition and early cognitive development
2.1 First language acquisition
2.2 The interplay of early linguistic and cognitive development
2.2.1 Vygotskian accounts of early sociocultural development
2.2.2 Egocentric speech
2.2.3 Inner speech
2.3 Development of everyday concepts and scientific concepts
2.4 Learning the written form of language
3 Formation of concepts and plausibility structures
3.1 From unmediated to mediated thought
3.2 Concepts, prototypes, and frames
3.3 Schemata and stereotypes
3.4 Conceptual metaphors
3.5 Linguistic relativity
3.5.1 Strong and weak versions of linguistic relativity
4 Language and the intersubjective construction of meaning
4.1 Word and utterance
4.2 Speech genre
4.3 Genre
4.4 Narrative
4.5 Discourse and positioning
4.6 Intersubjectivity
4.7 Blending spaces
5 Imposing structure on language-in-use: From language philosophy to discourse analysis
5.1 Ordinary language philosophy
5.1.1 Language games
5.1.2 Speech act theory
5.1.3 The cooperative principle and maxims of conversation
5.2 Some linguistic approaches to communication
5.2.1 Communicative competence and contextualization cues
5.2.2 Analyzing discourse
5.3 Activity theory
6 The dynamics of identity
6.1 Personal identity
6.2 Discursive negotiation of identity
6.3 Narrative identity
6.4 Social and cultural identity
6.5 Ascribed identities, role, and voice
6.6 Hybrid identities
7 The complexities of culture
7.1 Culture as distributed knowledge
7.2 Reading culture as text
7.3 Culture and social practice
7.4 Culture, social practice, and the subject
8 The interplay of cultures: Constructs of interculture
8.1 Hybridity
8.2 The third space
8.3 Translating cultures
8.4 Intercultural understanding
9 Fostering intercultural competence in the second language classroom
9.1 The role of the first language in second language learning
9.2 Translating and interlanguage
9.3 Metaphoric competence
9.4 Efforts of stabilizing linguistic and sociocultural context
9.4.1 Conceptual
9.4.2 Sociolinguistic
9.5 Learning culture in the zone of proximal development
9.6 Second language learning and its effects on learners’ minds
10 Mediating and assessing intercultural competence in the L2 classroom
10.1 Critique of Bennett’s (1993) developmental model of intercultural sensitivity
10.2 Mediating intercultural competence in the L2–classroom–– A model of progressive principles
10.3 The challenge of assessing intercultural competence
11 Conclusion
References
Name index
Subject index

Citation preview

Arnd Witte Blending Spaces

Trends in Applied Linguistics

| Edited by Ulrike Jessner Claire Kramsch

Volume 8

Arnd Witte

Blending Spaces

| Mediating and Assessing Intercultural Competence in the L2 Classroom

ISBN 978-1-61451-153-3 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-1-61451-123-6 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-1-5015-0078-7 ISSN 1868-6362 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2014 Walter de Gruyter, Inc., Boston/Berlin Typesetting: PTP-Berlin, Protago-TEX-Production GmbH, Berlin Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck ♾Printed on acid-free paper Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com

Contents 1

Introduction: The interplay of languages, cultures, and minds | 1

2 2.1 2.2 2.2.1 2.2.2 2.2.3 2.3 2.4

First language acquisition and early cognitive development | 28 First language acquisition | 36 The interplay of early linguistic and cognitive development | 46 Vygotskian accounts of early sociocultural development | 47 Egocentric speech | 50 Inner speech | 54 Development of everyday concepts and scientific concepts | 59 Learning the written form of language | 61

3 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.5.1

Formation of concepts and plausibility structures | 67 From unmediated to mediated thought | 70 Concepts, prototypes, and frames | 76 Schemata and stereotypes | 83 Conceptual metaphors | 86 Linguistic relativity | 93 Strong and weak versions of linguistic relativity | 99

4 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7

Language and the intersubjective construction of meaning | 104 Word and utterance | 107 Speech genre | 114 Genre | 116 Narrative | 119 Discourse and positioning | 121 Intersubjectivity | 128 Blending spaces | 133

5

Imposing structure on language-in-use: From language philosophy to discourse analysis | 146 Ordinary language philosophy | 147 Language games | 147 Speech act theory | 149 The cooperative principle and maxims of conversation | 152 Some linguistic approaches to communication | 155 Communicative competence and contextualization cues | 155 Analyzing discourse | 159 Activity theory | 166

5.1 5.1.1 5.1.2 5.1.3 5.2 5.2.1 5.2.2 5.3

vi | Contents 6 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6

The dynamics of identity | 173 Personal identity | 179 Discursive negotiation of identity | 182 Narrative identity | 184 Social and cultural identity | 187 Ascribed identities, role, and voice | 191 Hybrid identities | 195

7 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4

The complexities of culture | 201 Culture as distributed knowledge | 207 Reading culture as text | 214 Culture and social practice | 221 Culture, social practice, and the subject | 226

8 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4

The interplay of cultures: Constructs of interculture | 231 Hybridity | 235 The third space | 239 Translating cultures | 246 Intercultural understanding | 256

9

Fostering intercultural competence in the second language classroom | 264 The role of the first language in second language learning | 267 Translating and interlanguage | 272 Metaphoric competence | 279 Efforts of stabilizing linguistic and sociocultural context | 285 Conceptual | 285 Sociolinguistic | 289 Learning culture in the zone of proximal development | 293 Second language learning and its effects on learners’ minds | 301

9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 9.4.1 9.4.2 9.5 9.6

10 10.1 10.2 10.3

Mediating and assessing intercultural competence in the L2 classroom | 308 Critique of Bennett’s (1993) developmental model of intercultural sensitivity | 314 Mediating intercultural competence in the L2–classroom–– A model of progressive principles | 322 The challenge of assessing intercultural competence | 383

Contents

11

Conclusion | 394

References | 409 Name index | 436 Subject index | 442

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1 Introduction: The interplay of languages, cultures, and minds Can one learn this knowledge? Yes; some can. Not, however, by making a course in it, but through “experience”. – Can someone else be a man’s teacher in this? – Certainly. From time to time he gives him the right tip. – This is what “learning” and “teaching” are like here. (Wittgenstein 1953: 227e; emphasis in the original)

Teaching and learning a second or foreign language¹ means first of all mediating and learning the words, grammar, pronunciation and morpho-syntax which are part of the linguistic system. These linguistic elements are didactically reducible and thus learnable, following a clearly definable grammatical progression (cf. Harden, Köhler, and Witte 2006). However, language is not only a linguistic system but also the main tool for abstract thought and the central semiotic system of a speech community.² Therefore, in order to be able to use the second language (L2) appropriately, the student also has to learn about the cultural patterns and social structures of the other speech community which guide intersubjective language use. The sociocultural context of language usage, however, is highly dynamic, complex and, in its (inter-)subjective application, very flexible; it is also dependent on the social, cultural, and psychological framework, as invoked momentarily by the language users, for example, by the interlocutors in a conversation. These pragmatic contexts of social language use are structured by relatively loose and

1 Second language learning is a broader concept than foreign language learning. The term second language refers to a language that a person learns in addition to his or her first language (even if it is his or her third, fourth, etc. language). Second language acquisition refers typically to informal learning situations, for instance, Polish immigrants to the UK learning English, but can also refer to formal learning in classroom situations in any country. Foreign language learning refers to the process of learning the language indigenous to another country (not normally spoken in the country where the learner is situated) in a formal pedagogic context, for instance, German as a school subject in Ireland. The purposes of second language learning are often different from those of learning a foreign language: whereas a second language may be needed for full participation in the social, political, and economic life of the host country, a foreign language is frequently learned for the purposes of travelling abroad, communicating with native speakers, or simply because it is a required element of the formal education system. In this book, the more inclusive term second language (or L2) will be used even if most of the situations discussed in Chapters 9 and 10 refer to instructed learning contexts. 2 The term speech community refers to a group of people sharing characteristic patterns of a language and its “rules for the conduct and interpretation of speech” (Hymes 1974: 51). The speech community is a “social, rather than linguistic entity” (Hymes 1974: 47), thus placing emphasis on the socio-pragmatic use of speech and its creative potential for co-constructing meaning.

2 | 1 Introduction: The interplay of languages, cultures, and minds dynamic principles rather than by prescriptive rules, which make grammar much more analytically accessible, teachable, and learnable. However, unlike the language system itself, sociocultural principles of language use are not systematically reducible, and they consequently cannot be presented in an easily learnable fashion to the L2 learner. This has led to a situation in many L2 classrooms in primary, secondary, and tertiary-level education where structured learning of the second language as a linguistic system in terms of grammar, syntax, phonetics, lexis, semantics, morphology, and communicative language use has taken priority in the foundational stages of L2 learning which is expanded in the higher stages by the cultural frame of reference of the L2 speech community. This division of language and culture has been identified as one of the major concerns by the 2007 Modern Language Association (MLA) Ad Hoc Committee Report entitled “Foreign Languages and Higher Education: New Structures for a Changed World.” This report identifies some problems in foreign language departments and language programs at U.S. universities in response to the language deficit which has become an urgent matter in the U.S. after the catastrophic events of 9/11. In particular, the report identifies the division into lower and higher level courses in foreign language programs as problematic since they tend to support the artificial division into language skills (primarily taught at lower level) and cultural content (taught at higher level, mainly through literature).³ As a means of overcoming this division, the MLA (2007) Ad Hoc Committee Report proposes that this situation should be addressed by moving towards “a broader and more coherent curriculum in which language, culture, and literature are taught as a continuous whole, supported by alliances of other departments and expressed through interdisciplinary courses, [which] will reinvigorate language departments as valuable academic units central to the humanities and the missions of institutions of higher learning” (MLA 2007: 3). It seems obvious that the MLA Report is concerned about the weakening status of foreign language departments in the U.S., and it proposes tactical alliances with cognate academic departments in the humanistic faculty to safeguard the foreign language departments. This move, however, is not only tactically motivated, because interdisciplinarity makes utter sense when the goal of L2 learning is not confined to the linguistic system but is also broadened to include

3 This artificial separation between lower and upper division seems to be specific to U.S. foreign language departments; in most European universities, for example, a unified language-andcontent integrated approach is taken across the university sequence of study, due to the long period of time spent by students learning the L2 in secondary school (normally between four and eight years).

1 Introduction: The interplay of languages, cultures, and minds

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the development of overarching intercultural competence, based on the learner’s increasing awareness of and ability to use cultural constructs of the target culture, while at the same time becoming increasingly aware of the patterns and constructs of his or her native culture; this facilitates the ability to cognitively, emotionally, and behaviorally move between the dominant constructs of the languages and cultures involved in the learning experience. In this book, such a comprehensive, interdisciplinary, and integrated concept of second language learning will be addressed, with all its repercussions for the shift of subjective cultural frames of reference and constructs of identity, but also for the development of intercultural third spaces of learners, tapping into the disciplines of psychology, sociology, cultural studies, anthropology, ethnography, language philosophy, pedagogy, critical theory, and applied linguistics (cf. Chapters 6–10). The MLA Report (2007: 2) uses the terminology “translingual and transcultural competence” which is different from the concept of intercultural competence used in this book, although the authors of the report propose a definition which seems to oscillate between the two concepts: The idea of translingual and transcultural competence (. . . ) places value on the ability to operate between languages. Students are educated to function as informed and capable interlocutors with educated native speakers in the target language. They are also trained to reflect on the world and themselves through the lens of another language. (. . . ) In the course of acquiring functional language abilities, students are taught critical language awareness, interpretation and translation, historical and political consciousness, social sensibility, and aesthetic perception (MLA 2007: 2–3).

In this citation, the phrase “operating between languages” insinuates the development of a “third place” on the part of the individual student, stimulated and fostered by rich experiential activities in the L2 classroom (cf. Sections 8.2 & 9.6). The phrase of reflecting on the world and oneself “through the lens of another culture and language” does not imply “that one national language can be mapped onto one national culture” (Kramsch 2012: 18) but that the conceptualizations and patterns of construal, as subjectively mediated in the third place between languages and cultures, are used by the L2 learner as a genuinely new basis for construction. The third place is characterized by the subjective blending of spaces within and between cultures (cf. Section 4.7), operating on the margins of cultural systems of meaning, in borderline zones and spaces in-between traditional cultural patterns, values, and norms, thus constantly developing relevant spheres for the subject where cultural production and subjective positionings take place. The negotiation for meaning in borderline spaces between the languages and cultures evokes the concept of interlingual and intercultural positionings by students; the positionings are characterized by the recognition of linguistic and cultural bound-

4 | 1 Introduction: The interplay of languages, cultures, and minds aries and the intent to negotiate concepts, patterns, discourses, and norms in the subjective third space between the languages and cultures. The concept of translingual and transcultural positionings has other intentions,⁴ in that it aims to overcome traditional boundaries and position itself above existing cultures, thereby eliminating essentializing constructs such as racism and ethnocentrism. Transcultural individuals can be seen as “culturally footloose, owing loyalty to no single culture” (Parekh 2006: 150). They can be detached from cultural systems of meaning and values and create their own original lifestyle beyond the constraints of culture (for a discussion of the concepts of trans-, inter-, and multiculturality, cf. Introduction to Chapter 8). Hence, the terminology used in this book centers on the “inter” as the space of enunciation in terms of negotiation for meaning which recognizes the cultural situatedness of the subject with regard to language, identity, positioning, activity, and emotion. Since the complex activities of making sense are centered on the learner as an embodied subject, the perspective taken in this book is not that of the learner to whom something is being done (as expressed in the above citation, e.g., that the student is “educated,” “trained,” and “taught”), but it understands the learner as an active and engaged member of a linguistic and cultural community who is constantly negotiating for meaning in all aspects of everyday life in psychological, linguistic, emotional, cultural, and behavioral domains. The L2 classroom is not confined to form/function-focused language learning but it has to fundamentally consider the learner’s development of intercultural competence and should also take into account each learner’s complex and competing expectations, worldviews and beliefs, identities and voices, and anxieties and desires which are initially facilitated by the cultural values and beliefs of the first language (L1) speech community. This is where this book enters the debate: in the first part it attempts to comprehensively analyze the notions of cultural, social, pragmatic, communicative, emotional, and cognitive contexts of subjective L1 usage and the influence they have on L2 learning and teaching. The comprehensive nature of these analyses means that this part of the book will function as a post-disciplinary handbook that provides a critical review and contextualization of existing research with regard to intercultural dimensions of second language learning. A constructionistdevelopmental perspective will be applied in order to analyze the complex interplay of cognitive development, cultural patterns, and social structures in L1 acquisition (including the acquisition of concepts, frames, schemata, and plaus-

4 However, it should be noted here that the concepts of transculturality and interculturality have arisen from different historical and discursive formations.

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ibility structures) and, from that basis, in intercultural L2 learning. In the second part of the book, the emphasis shifts towards interculturally blended spaces as the transitory domains for subjectively producing novel knowledge. For the field of L2 learning, the constructionist approach has the potential to overcome the traditional dichotomies of own (or native) and other (or foreign) since neither are static and essentialist categories but highly dynamic and complex notions engaged in dialectic processes of accommodation and assimilation, whilst always focused on the developing subject. The intercultural third space provides the ideal terrain for symbolically deconstructing essentialist categories and reconstructing them as the dynamic blended foundation of subjective symbolic construction, based on the complex interplay of languages and cultures in the subjective mind of the L2 learner. The third space between cultural frames provides the nucleus for the subjective development of intercultural competence (cf. Chapter 10) which is a complex construct that includes cognitive, emotional, psychological, and behavioral domains of the learner and is thus difficult to define in terms of its mediation, development and assessment in the L2 classroom.⁵ In Section 10.2, a model of principles for progressively mediating intercultural competence in the L2 classroom will be developed in terms of encouraging and allowing for the blending of spaces between the cultures which integrates many of the concepts, notions, and theories analyzed in the previous chapters. Neither the first nor the target culture, nor the mind of the learner or the intercultural third place, are static and atomistic entities: they all constantly interact and are subject to ongoing change which makes it very difficult, if not impossible, to assess the subjective accounts of intercultural competence of the L2 learner in a comprehensive and inclusive manner (cf. Section 10.3) which involves the psychological and identity-related domains of learners that cannot be verbalized or observed. The focus on the learner as a subject is easier claimed than implemented in L2 teaching; each individual learner is unique in terms of socialization, lingualiz-

5 The intercultural third space opens up for the subject by engaging in negotiating for meaning between languages and cultures; it is a discursive space, located in a continuum between determinations of essence and identity (cf. Section 8.2). It describes the momentary range of possibilities and options of cognitive and emotional construal in a subjective perspective, located between dominant conceptualizations, discourses, and categories. The L2 learner takes up a momentary subject position in this space which can be defined as the intercultural place. The dynamic third place functions as the momentary, yet transient and transformative foundation for his or her processes of construction on cognitive, emotional, and behavioral planes. It is characterized by a degree of dynamic in-betweenness, or inter, which belongs to neither of the languages or cultures involved, thus facilitating a genuinely new quality of construal without imperialist tendencies of one language silencing the voices of the other (cf. Section 8.2).

6 | 1 Introduction: The interplay of languages, cultures, and minds ation, emotion, experience, memory, constructs of identity, desire, ambition, and many other aspects. However, what learners in a homogenous L2 classroom have in common is the first language and the inherent concepts, frames, and plausibility structures which facilitate smooth intersubjective exchange. Another shared domain of learners in a homogeneous class is the internalized culture which provides them with basically the same frame of mind and patterns of thought and action. Both elements, language and culture, are broadly shared in a speech community, albeit subjectively harbored to different degrees. Subjectivity as a conscious stance is facilitated by culture and language which are also the glue that holds a speech community together and, by implication, makes it distinguishable from other speech communities in terms of frame of mind, habitus, life-world, and worldview. These boundaries are, of course, not insuperable because one can learn the linguistic structures, communicative conventions, and cultural values of other speech communities. However, the arduous process of acquiring a second language and its cultural context requires deliberate effort and engagement by the learner, in particular with regard to communicative conventions and cultural values, because both are highly dynamic and flexible in terms of their actual social use. This process has to be carefully facilitated and guided by more knowledgeable others in the person of teachers. A second language is unlike any other school subject where the subject-matter has to be learned and cognitively internalized; rather, it provides learners with another medium for expressing their most deeply held awarenesses, feelings, conflicts, memories, and aspirations, freed from the constraints of the L1, newly conceptualized through another language, and contextualized in another cultural frame of reference. And it is exactly this transformative potential of the L2 in terms of cognition, emotion, performance, and psychological traits that enormously complicates the efforts of teaching and learning a second (or subsequent) language. The impossibility of constructing neatly learnable and valid rules for the subjective invocation of social, pragmatic, and cultural contexts by interlocutors in their speech acts has led the two most prominent 20 th century linguists, Ferdinand de Saussure and Noam Chomsky, to introduce an artificial separation of the linguistic system (langue, competence) as a stable object of analysis from the social use of language (parole, performance). Having excluded the dynamic and messy sociocultural and subjective context from the sphere of analysis, the way was cleared to focus solely on the rules of the linguistic system in terms of ideal users of language: “Linguistic theory is concerned primarily with an ideal speaker-listener, in a completely homogenous speech-community, who knows its language perfectly and is unaffected by such grammatically irrelevant conditions as memory limitations, distractions, shifts of attention and interest, and errors (random or characteristic) in applying his knowledge of the language in actual

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performance” (Chomsky 1965: 3). Thus, meaning is considered to reside in the linguistic signs themselves, rather than being created through its use. However, this analytical move, while extremely helpful for making the linguistic system transparent and, therefore, more easily learnable for L2 students, has proven a hindrance for learning and analyzing language in its complex and dynamic communicative, social, and cultural contexts. In contrast to systemic linguists, functional linguists (such as Roman Jakobson, Karl Bühler, Michael Halliday, and others) have studied the socio-communicative functions of language usage in order to find corresponding structural elements in different aspects of the social use of language. Their basic assumption is that language has arisen in and through society to serve social purposes; consequently, the analysis of language as a social semiotic has to be the starting point for linguistic analysis, and not the isolated system of language. After all, as Jakobson (1990: 332) quipped, “Grammar without meaning is meaningless.” Another strand of researching performative language use is that of linguistic anthropology, ethnography, discourse analysis, pragmalinguistics, and sociolinguistics which treat language as a cultural practice and speakers as social actors (rather than idealized speakers and listeners). The notion of context assumes a central role for both of these more pragmatic strands of linguistics. Whereas for the functional linguists, in particular Jakobson and Bühler, the notion of context mainly refers to the immediate communicative situation, i.e., the speaker (sender), the listener (receiver), the message and the channel of communication, linguistic anthropologists and sociolinguistics take a much broader approach towards the analysis of context which includes social structures, institutions, and cultural conceptualizations and patterns. These two strands of sociocultural linguistics (in the widest sense) are complemented by language philosophy, most notably the works of John Searle (1969) and John Austin (1962), which expanded on Ludwig Wittgenstein’s (1953) groundbreaking ideas. Language is no longer seen as a mere instrument for the onedimensional transportation of meaning from one person to another, but, rather, is conceived as a series of speech acts, or as a tool for, as the programmatic title of Austin’s book suggests, Doing Things with Words (1962). Therefore, the concept of linguistic competence alone is clearly insufficient as the object of analysis for language in social use, and thus the objective of L2 acquisition has to also be expanded to a broader concept of what Dell Hymes (1972) coined communicative competence, which incorporates the domain of performance, in that appropriate social language use must take communicative styles and sociocultural traditions into consideration:

8 | 1 Introduction: The interplay of languages, cultures, and minds In the linguistic theory under discussion, judgments are said to be of two kinds: of grammaticality, with respect to competence, and of acceptability, with respect to performance. Each pair of terms is strictly matched; the critical analysis just given requires analysis of the other. In particular, the analysis just given requires that explicit distinctions be made within the notion of ‘acceptability’ to match the distinctions of kinds of ‘performance’, and at the same time, the entire set of terms must be reexamined and recast with respect to the communicative as a whole. (Hymes 1972b: 281; emphasis in the original)

Consequently, the units of analysis shift from the sentence-level to pragmatic situations, speech acts, and social events. Communicative performance is considered a realm of social action which emerges from interaction between speakers and thus cannot be described in terms of individual knowledge. Situations influence not only what to say but also how to say it. The communicative approach to second language teaching and learning, which has gained prominence from the mid-1970s, is the first L2 teaching and learning methodology to try to systematically include the pragmatic context of language use. Students should, in addition to a systemic linguistic competence in the L2, acquire a more general communicative competence, defined as the ability to apply the L2 flexibly and appropriately in a range of pragmatic speech situations pertaining to the authentic sociocultural context of the L2. However, the communicative approach operates within rather limited pragmatic situations which prepare the L2 learner for using formulaic speech in very narrow contexts of stereotypical situations, for example, In the Restaurant or At the Train Station. Although clearly a step in the right direction, the communicative approach has further deficiencies. It largely ignores the sociocultural imprint of learners’ subjective concepts, beliefs, aspirations, attitudes, and emotions because it is mainly orientated at the target language and its pragmatic use in social and cultural conventions; it also does not sufficiently take into consideration the prevalent learning traditions in different regions. For instance, in some countries the learning traditions may be more authoritarian than in others where co-operative learning principles are applied.⁶ Consequently, since the 1990s there have been calls for a further broadening of the concept of competence towards a more inclusive intercultural competence. Intercultural competence not only refers to the cognitive level (knowledge and awareness), but includes the affective level (attitudes and dispositions), the social level (skills and internalized patterns of behavior, patterns of action and

6 When I was teaching German language and culture at a Nigerian university in the 1980s, I met considerable resistance to the use of role plays or group work since students had never experienced these social learning forms before and, at least initially, considered them to be a “waste of time” (cf. Witte 1996: 55–107).

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interaction), and the cultural level (pragmatic presuppositions, judgments of relevance, interpretive procedures, values, beliefs, and emotions). The goal of the interculturally-oriented L2 learning process is not the acquisition of linguistic skills rivaling those of native speakers, but the development of a competent “intercultural speaker” (Byram 1999: 67) who may be deficient in linguistic competence in relation to the native speaker, but at the same time has a surplus of intercultural competence in comparison to the monolingual person. The intercultural speaker is able to analyze the main thrust of discourses with regard to cultural foundations and backgrounds, and can adapt his or her behavior accordingly: “It is this function of establishing relationships, managing dysfunctions and mediating which distinguishes an ‘intercultural speaker’, and makes them different from a native speaker” (Byram 1999: 67). The interculturally competent person is able to create shared meanings with people from other cultural communities who have different cultural perspectives and values because he or she is in a position, at least temporarily, to suspend the internalized cultural frame of reference and adopt that of the cultural other. The term intercultural seems to imply that the competent learner is located somewhat between two (or more) cultures. Cultures, however, are not clearly definable entities due to their lack of essence, and there is hardly a single human culture in existence that has not had contact with other cultures; therefore, every culture is already a hybrid culture. Cultures do not so much exist in their artifacts (e.g., works of architecture, music, literature, fine arts, etc.), but rather they are distributed and embodied systems of orientation for every member of a cultural community. However, everyone internalizes the values and beliefs of a culture to different degrees. Furthermore, cultures can be internally plural and “represent a continuing conversation between their different [internal] traditions and strands of thought” (Parekh 2006: 337), while at the same time providing a certain degree of internal coherence. Culture, in a non-essentialist manner, can be understood as a generative matrix, providing the subject and the cultural community with patterns of interpretation and construction in a world which has already been interpreted by others in a sociohistorical dimension.⁷ Without this internalized cultural knowledge of how to understand, feel, behave, act, and interact in a given sociocultural context, a reflective human existence would not

7 The term cultural community refers to “a body of people united in terms of a shared culture” (Parekh 2006: 154). It is closely related to the concept of speech community, and can overlap with it but both concepts are not identical; the cultural elements of a community can transcend linguistic elements, for example, in countries where many different languages are spoken, such as Papua New Guinea or Nigeria.

10 | 1 Introduction: The interplay of languages, cultures, and minds be possible. Cultural knowledge, which is mainly tacit, provides the matrix for interpretative practices applied by the group members, individually and collectively, in everyday interactions. For example, in conversations, certain linguistic features (e.g., pronouns, code-switching, prosodic features) invoke the social and cultural context of interpretation that is to be employed by the interlocutors. If sustained L2 learning aims at mediating intercultural competence as a key qualification, it is unavoidable that the learner will insert his or her subjectivity into the learning process.⁸ This is the case because key constructs of his or her first (or native) cultural community (including constructs of personal identity), mediated by the first language and internalized during the processes of socialization, lingualization, and enculturation,⁹ will be increasingly challenged and qualified by the engagement with alternative constructs inherent in the L2 and its sociocultural context. Although, of course, the learner has most likely met people with migrant backgrounds living in his or her community, or has spent vacations abroad, these encounters do not have the same quality and transformative potential which is provided by the deliberate, intensive, (meta-)reflective, and sustained process of learning a second language and its cultural context.¹⁰ The concept of intercultural competence transcends domains of skill and performance to include “deeper notions of disposition, intention, motive and personal identity” (Fleming 2009: 3). Therefore, intercultural competence cannot be taught as a neat quantifiable product in the L2 classroom; it is a highly subjective,

8 The term “subjectivity” refers first of all to the condition of a human being as an embodied subject; more precisely it refers to the subject’s perspectives, experiences, feelings, beliefs, memories, aspirations, and desires which, contrary to the implications of the term, are not completely “subjective” but fundamentally facilitated and shaped by the language, culture, and habits used by relevant others. The subject, however, experiences linguistically, culturally, and socially constructed “realities” and constantly produces transformative meaning by combining these with his or her subjective stance. Thus, subjectivity is characterized by the constantly ongoing parallel processes of individuation and socialization; it combines the subjective mind and subjective emotions (cf. Chapter 2). 9 For children, the process of growing into the conventions and norms of the community and society (socialization) typically goes hand in hand with learning the first language (lingualization) and internalizing the cultural patterns (enculturation) which guide social action. In the following, reference will only be made to the process of socialization which is understood to include the processes of lingualization and enculturation. 10 Of course, the L2 learner may be a member of a minority culture living in a majority culture in which case, under the pressures of coping with everyday life, he or she will already have experienced cultural difference and reflected on and challenged his or her own cognitive, behavioral, and emotional resources, as well as that of members of the majority cultures, albeit not in the scaffolded space of the zone of proximal development (cf. Section 10.2, Principle 1).

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dynamic, and flexible construct that has to be actively acquired by the individual in an intentional, cohesive, and coordinated manner (cf. Witte 2011). This acquisition process starts in the very early stages of L2 learning when the internalized norms, values, and beliefs of the native culture are still dominant for cognition, emotion, and behavior (cf. Section 4.5; Chapter 10). Learning a second language, including its underlying cultural patterns, has the potential to unsettle not only the norms of cognitive functioning for the reader, but also those of emotional and behavioral functioning which have been acquired and deeply internalized through his or her life-long participation in culturally organized social practices, including the ubiquitous use of cultural tools and artifacts, in particular that of language. The cognitive, emotional, and behavioral dominance of the linguistic and cultural categories of construction, which have been acquired during the process of socialization, is gradually reduced (although never quite eliminated), and the learner develops his or her own intercultural constructs and positionings in the process of progressively engaging with the categories and configurations of the other language, culture, and society. The emerging new cognitive and affective bases for subjective construction are located somewhere between the constructs of the L1 and the L2 and their respective cultures; the intercultural third space is characterized by a high degree of subjectivity and dynamism in the L2 learner’s efforts to blend the manifold influences of the cultures and languages involved in the learning process in a meaningful way. The spatial metaphor refers here to the discursive problem of subjective construals which are characterized by increasingly blended or mixed constructs between conceptualizations, discourses, and plausibility structures within and across cultures. Blended spaces are partial and temporary structures that interlocutors construct when talking or thinking about a perceived situation or configuration. Blended mental spaces contain elements of a situation which are typically blended in the mind of the subject, not in a freewheeling and coincidental manner but in a way that is structured by culturally constituted frames (cf. Fauconnier and Turner 2002: 40). Mental spaces are shortterm constructs informed by more general and more stable structures of cultural knowledge and associated with a particular domain. They are interconnected in a broader network of mental spaces, and they can be blended and modified as subjective thought and social discourse unfold (cf. Section 4.7). It is precisely this high degree of subjectivity of the socioculturally structured intercultural third space which requires a sensitive teaching approach, leaving ample room for explorative and collaborative learning activities. Dominance of classroom activities on the part of the teacher and content-based, textbook-driven learning-processes tend to ignore the fact that L2 learners approach the L2 differently from native speakers who have been socialized in the target culture; L2 learners “make quite different associations, construct different truths from those

12 | 1 Introduction: The interplay of languages, cultures, and minds of socialized native speakers” (Kramsch 2009a: 13). As embodied selves,¹¹ learners do not respond directly to external input, but to “idealized representations” they have construed (consciously or not) for themselves over time (cf. Kramsch 2009a: 75). These different associations and idealized representations have to be negotiated by the learners in the process of learning the L2, i.e., they have to blend their understandings of the new L2 constructs with their internalized knowledge on cognitive, behavioral, and emotional levels, thus affording subjective stances and identities which are dynamically positioned in the hybrid third space between the languages and cultural frames. The traditional instructivist teaching approach, based on cognitive psychology, cannot adequately provide this holistic learning environment because it emphasizes the mediation of explicit cognitive knowledge. It is based on the assumption that every human possesses information-processing faculties in order to learn. If this were the case, mental processes would necessarily be rulegoverned, just like information-processing devices in computers which apply strict mechanistic rules. However, research on the elicitation of cognitive rules of information processing has been conducted under artificial experimental conditions. Typically, a pre-test was conducted, followed by a post-test, and the results were compared with those of a control group which was not exposed to the experiments.¹² The teaching and learning process has to make use of these mechanisms which are responsible for the processing of information (giving rise to metaphors of input, output, short-term memory, long-term memory, intake, container, hardware system, software program, etc.) with the aim of optimizing

11 The notion of embodiment draws attention to the fact that mind and cognition (cf. Chapter 2) cannot be separated from the body because the latter contributes content to the former (in terms of structure and function of implicit and explicit activities of perception and construction [cf. Damasio 1994: 226]. For example, bodily aspects such as emotions guide us in our selection of relevant information and subsequent action). The concept of self is embodied because it relates to implicit and explicit cognitive and bodily construals of who we think and feel we are. The self is a multilayered and dynamic construct. It “emerges from direct perceptual experience and from the responses of the body external and internal stimuli” (Kramsch 2009a: 70) and is constituted in the awareness of how we react to these responses, not only in the present, but also in the past (based on experiences and memories) and in the future (related to intentions, imaginations and goals of what and how the self would like to be). Hence, the self-conceptions of self have an effect on behavior, self-esteem, levels of engagement, experience of emotions and the world more broadly, which in turn influence interpersonal relationships, society, and culture. Learning a L2 can contribute to a re-conceptualization of the self by providing culturally different symbolic systems for the construal of meaning, emotion, and behavior. 12 In these experiments the learners are treated, just like in the instructivist classroom, as voiceless objects; their subjectivity is not taken into consideration.

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the process of learning the rules of the L2. The process of teaching and learning typically focuses on content in the form of task-based learning, as presented in textbooks and prescribed by the school curricula, and it is didactically reduced by the teacher in order to achieve optimal learning processes for the group of learners, as defined by the teacher. The process of learning is conceptualized as the learner decoding the relevant information, relating it to previously acquired knowledge, and storing the processed information in long-term memory. However, this model of cognitive information processing sends the wrong signal to the classroom practice of intercultural L2 learning by implying that the successive mastering of relevant linguistic rules will automatically result in an adequate performance in interactions situated in the target speech community. The L2 learner is neither a machine-like device of information processing nor an emotionless pawn in the language game; he or she is a unique subject with specific experiences, knowledge, memories, emotions, desires, and learning requirements. The information-processing model is based on idealized and homogenized views of interaction which cannot capture the ambiguity and the context-dependency of processes of negotiations for meaning, as Jerome Bruner remarks: “But (. . . ) the rules common to all information systems do not cover the messy, ambiguous, and context-sensitive processes of meaning making, a form of activity in which the construction of highly ‘fuzzy’ and metaphoric category systems is just as notable as the use of specifiable categories for sorting inputs in a way to yield comprehensible outputs” (Bruner 1996: 5). Subjective cognition is not, as implied by cognitive psychology, an autonomous and self-contained entity, but it is fundamentally a social construct, produced by interaction with embodied others. Therefore, the generalized cognitive rules on which the teacher centers his or her teaching efforts can only have limited validity for the learner in two dimensions: firstly, in acquiring the information in subjectively relevant circumstances, and secondly, in externalizing the acquired knowledge in real-life situations in the L2 community. The educationalist Wells comments that “such knowledge, however carefully sequenced and authoritatively presented, remains at the level of information that has little or no impact on students’ understanding until they actively engage in collaborative knowledge building to test its relevance in relation to their personal models of the world and, where possible, its practical application in action” (Wells 1999: 90). It makes sense, therefore, to question the fundamental assumptions of the instructivist approach, in particular the assumptions of the uniformity of rule-governed human cognition, the generalizability of experimentally gained research results, the existence of one reality for all humans, and the existence of an ideal individual processor of information who speaks with one voice (cf.

14 | 1 Introduction: The interplay of languages, cultures, and minds Kukla 2000). The social constructivist (or constructionist)¹³ and sociocultural approaches, informed by the works of Vygotsky, Bruner, Gergen, Harré, Shotter, and others, criticize exactly these assumptions.¹⁴ Instead of generalizing cognitive rules for all learners, it focuses on the uniqueness of each person’s subjective learning trajectories and potential for construction. It takes into account the dynamic roles of social context, subjectivity, intentionality, and the sociocultural, historical, and institutional influences on the subject who is involved in cognitive, emotional, and behavioral development. Once the sociocultural line of development intersects with the biological line in early childhood, the mind of the child is transformed by the conceptualizations and the grammar of language which he or she internalizes and which enables him or her to reflect on experiences and gain conscious control over his or her mental activities (cf. Chapters 2 and 3). External and internal realities are united by the mediating power of language as the most elaborated system of symbols. The constructionist approach, unlike the cognitive tradition, assumes the existence of multiple realities that are constructed differently by each subject because of the inherent diverse voices, beliefs, and attitudes, acquired during the process of socialization in different contexts and to different degrees. On this basis, neo-Vygotskian notions of intersubjectivity, co-construction of shared realities, and dialogized heteroglossia (Bakhtin) are considered important characteristics of the L2 learning process (cf. Chapters 2– 4). Therefore, knowledge does not exist independent of the learner but is always intersubjectively generated and subjectively constructed. If learning is conceptualized as the active construction of knowledge on the part of the learner, the instructivist notion of one-dimensional transfer of knowledge in the L2 classroom has to be revised. Instead, the learner’s own creative potential has to be stimulated in order to actively construct knowledge, together with his or her peers. This implies that the classroom has to provide a rich and varied

13 “Constructionism – the N word as opposed to the V word – shares constructivism’s connotations of learning as ‘building knowledge structures’ irrespective of the circumstances of the learning. It then adds the idea that this happens especially felicitously in a context where the learner is consciously engaged in constructing a public entity, whether it’s a sand castle on the beach or a theory of the universe” (Papert 1991: 1). 14 Although social constructionism has come under fire from some academics for being quite vague and therefore lacking scientific or academic validity (e.g., Hacking 2000), it still is, in my view, the best available theory for L2 acquisition, if combined with the sociocultural approach, as it emphasizes the social and cultural dimensions of constructs of the “worlds” which are open for anyone to co-construct. Socioculturalism goes beyond constructivism by emphasizing not the individual, but the radically collective and social construction of realities which is reflected in the social and cultural constitution of the subjective mind (cf. Chapters 2–4).

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learning environment which leaves adequate room for explorative, experiential, collaborative, as well as transformative and subjectively meaningful construction activities. Due to the subjective differences in students’ construction-potential, there cannot be the one correct way of achieving learning progress for all learners in the classroom; therefore, the teacher has, together with the learners, to develop a spectrum of diverse possibilities and paths of learning which the learners can subjectively negotiate and select from. The process of teaching and learning has to be flexible and versatile with regard to methodologies, didactics, and materials. Rather than providing for a transfer of knowledge, students are stimulated by adequate and rich learning environments to actively (co-)construct subjective knowledge, as is relevant for their particular interests and subject positionings (cf. Section 4.5). Teaching and learning are, therefore, orientated by the process rather than by the product of learning. This is even more so the case when one considers that concepts such as culture, interculture, discourse, and genre cannot be defined in an essentialist and stable sense. The constructionist approach fundamentally recognizes the sociocultural and psychological dimensions of language. This is particularly true for the typifying and structuring influence of language on the subjective mind through its inherent conceptualizations, schemata, frames, and plausibility structures. After all, “Language is a guide to ‘social reality’ (. . . ). Human beings do not live in the objective world alone, nor alone in the world of social activity as ordinarily understood, but are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of expression for their society” (Sapir 1949: 162; emphasis added).¹⁵ Sapir reminds us that language cannot be equated with the social world. Rather, language is a semiotic system that represents to us the social, cultural, and material worlds, but is at the same time involved in our subjective and collective construction of these worlds. Language, therefore, is very closely linked to the structure of our subjective reality. This means that we can only represent our experiences and feelings to ourselves and to others by using the concepts embedded in our language and culture; therefore, our private feelings, memories, and thoughts come into existence through language, even before we communicate them to others.¹⁶ This also means that use of language is a social and cultural act because it requires the co-construction of social roles, based on the implicit cultural knowledge that defines speakers as members of a discourse community.¹⁷

15 For a discussion of linguistic relativity in its weak and strong versions, cf. Section 3.5. 16 Cf. Wittgenstein’s (1953) example of pain, as discussed in Chapter 2. 17 Even silence in communication may be culturally charged, in that the frequency and situation of pauses, omissions, and silence can be socioculturally influenced.

16 | 1 Introduction: The interplay of languages, cultures, and minds Perceptible meaning usually originates from interaction between people, not within people. The co-construction of meaning is a highly dynamic process because language cannot transmit ideas in a precise, stable, and identical form from one person to another. Intended meaning is always much richer than can be conveyed by the language used by speakers/hearers, or by writers/readers. Speakers/writers frequently compress their thoughts and often imply, rather than state explicitly, what they mean, whereas hearers/readers construct their own version of the intended meaning of what they hear or read. The meaning of a word is, unlike in a dictionary entry, not invariable; it changes according to the situation, mood, and intention of the speaker or writer (which can be indicated by using a certain register, tone, pitch of voice, phrase, or body language) and, in turn, the mood, knowledge, and competence of the recipient. Therefore, communication is neither a straight-forward nor a one-dimensional transmission of ideas: it is always a joint and creative endeavor between the people involved, based on certain linguistic patterns, contextual influences, and tacit cultural knowledge. Meaning is to a certain extent pre-constructed, not only in the structure and the conceptualizations of language, but also in frames, genres, and discourses (cf. Chapter 4), i.e., in the structured sociocultural use of language, since they produce a particular version of events which, according to Foucault (2002: 54), should not be treated merely as “groups of signs (signifying elements referring to contents or representations) but as practices that systematically form the objects of which they speak.” Consequently, discourses are much more than just sense-making devices: they are constitutive agents that organize and arrange meanings of everyday social life.¹⁸ Therefore, language as a symbolic system has the power to create and shape symbolic realities, which can be real or imagined (cf. Section 4.6). In this role of constructing an agreed, yet contestable, social and subjective “reality,” socioculturally situated language provides the principles, schemata, and patterns for understanding, feeling, acting, and interacting on both subjective and collective levels for the members of a cultural community. These are constantly available to all members on a mainly subconscious level in the form of tacit cultural knowledge; they are only made explicit in exceptional circumstances, for example, when misunderstandings occur in interaction, and are stabilized in social conventions. Hence, culture provides the categorical framework of a communal model of reality (or better, realities) which is shared by all members of a cultural community – albeit subjectively to different degrees. Socially and culturally generated conceptualizations, plausibility structures, genres, discourses, conceptual metaphors, and frames which contribute to structuring the social reality must, 18 Since there are many discourses and many individuals involved, meaning, then, is never fixed but always contestable.

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therefore, constitute an integral part of L2 learning, not only with regard to the target language, but also to the learners’ first language (cf. Chapters 3 & 9). However, these elements are very difficult to systematically include in the L2 teaching and learning process because of their complexity, dynamism, and flexibility. In contrast to the communicative approach, the intercultural approach to foreign language learning pays significant attention to the internalized native linguistic conceptualizations and cultural patterns, which have a formative influence on the constructive potential of learners. This formative influence of native linguistic structures and cultural patterns, however, is modified and qualified by the increasingly complex interplay of languages and cultures which takes place in the process of learning a L2. Intercultural competence, therefore, brings about subjective transformations, not only in declarative knowledge (i.e., knowing what), but also in dispositions, values, attitudes, beliefs, emotions, abilities, aspirations, skills, and procedural knowledge (i.e., knowing how). Taken together, these transformations also entail changes in subjective constructs of identity, because the intense cognitive and affective contact with other symbolic worlds makes the learner more deeply engaged in negotiating new subject positions (cf. Chapter 6). The complexity, holism, and dynamism of intercultural competence present a considerable challenge to the didactics and methodology of teaching and learning in the L2 classroom. They bring about the danger of, on the one hand, reducing social and cultural complexities to neat teachable, learnable, and assessable units which are artificially cut off from the broader social and cultural context of language usage, understood as social and cultural practice. Hence, they fall yet again into the familiar trap of artificiality and simplicity of which the communicative approach can be accused (cf. above). There has to be a structured approach to facilitate, for L2 language learners, an increasingly deeper familiarization with other social and cultural contexts (cf. Section 10.2), while at the same time paying attention to the simultaneous qualification of previously internalized (or native) conceptual and sociocultural categories. If one perceives the process of learning a L2 as an intentional, cohesive, and coordinated endeavor of progressive familiarization with the L2 and its pragmatic and sociocultural context, it seems necessary that in the initial phases of the learning process, social and cultural complexities have to be didactically reduced to learnable chunks, albeit with some degree of simplification and misrepresentation, in order to provide anchors for cognitive and affective engagement with the Other.¹⁹ 19 The capitalization of the noun “Other” is borrowed from German when it means “das Andere” [the Other] in the sense of representations of the other culture in order to differentiate it from the meaning of “the other person.”

18 | 1 Introduction: The interplay of languages, cultures, and minds Following constructionist learning principles, the degree of didactic reduction has to be guided by the learners’ “zone of proximal development” (Vygotsky 1978: 86; cf. Section 9.5), leaving the subjective learner with sufficient space for explorative and creative negotiation for meaning, including the construction of imagined identities. During the intermediate levels of L2 learning, elements of socio-pragmatic and cultural norms, values, and conceptualizations will have to be gradually combined and, at the advanced stages, expanded into a network of sociocultural knowledge regarding socially appropriate language usage which is based on procedural knowledge of underlying cultural construction patterns of the L1 and the L2 (cf. Section 10.2). In this process of mediating and fostering intercultural competence, the focus is less on seemingly fixed and stable cultural entities of the cultures involved, and more on the shifting and emerging third spaces of the L2 learners themselves. The mental (but also emotional) journey into these complex structures has, ultimately, to be taken by each L2 language learner subjectively, although, of course, co-construction of knowledge with peers and teachers is essential for facilitating this process because “knowledge is neither communicated nor discovered by learners: it is shaped by people’s communicative actions” (Mercer 1995: 19). But since every individual constructs his or her own individual intra- and intercultural places on the basis of his or her subjective positions within the complex networks of culture, language, and society that are available to him or her, these intercultural positionings are highly subjective from a personal point of view; at the same time, the subject is also positioned by others (cf. Section 4.5). Ultimately, only the subject can construct meaning for himself or herself which is “marked by a unique subjective state that will be understood as such by others who share a culture” (Bruner 1995: 27) or share roughly the same level of intercultural competence (cf. Section 10.2). Although meaning is construed differently by various cultures, all cultures share the principle of the subject as the endpoint of understanding and constructing meaning.²⁰

20 In this book, the terms subject and individual are not used synonymously. The term individual refers to a person as an isolated and embodied unit (viewed from the outside), who is identifiable from the group or community. The individual has, as a sociological and political entity, certain rights and obligations bestowed on him or her by the constitution of a state. By contrast, the term subject refers to a set of positionings (or roles) with regard to rights and duties to act within evolving discourses and storylines. These positionings are structured by dominant cultural and discursive values and internalized by the person to varying degrees, always open to constant re-negotiation. Subjectivity is not given from birth but it is the mediated by the subject (consciously or subconsciously) through symbolic forms, mainly language. Subjectivity refers to “the conscious and unconscious thoughts and emotions of the individual, her sense of herself, and ways of understanding her relation to the world” (Weedon 1997: 28); it is constantly construc-

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Therefore, the subjective activities of construal have to be at the center of L2 teaching and learning, even if learners collaboratively engage in explorative learning activities. Since these activities are not located in a vacuum but are situated in a particular sociocultural and institutional discourse, contextual influences have to be taken into consideration. Moreover, the social and cultural imprints of learners’ beliefs, values, attitudes, concepts of identity, forms of behavior, and structures of interaction (from simple forms of politeness to complex frames and discourses) have to be considered because they will initially form the basis for the engagement with corresponding constructs of the other culture and society. In the course of becoming increasingly engaged in the consideration of L2 constructs, these deeply internalized, socioculturally generated subjective traits will be externalized and thereby made accessible to processes of construction, deconstruction, and reconstruction. Thus, there clearly exists a necessity in L2 classroom practice and research to further broaden notions of cultural and social context in order to foster, not only the ability to produce linguistically correct utterances in the L2, but also the skills to produce contextually appropriate L2 utterances in a flexible ad hoc manner; since the 1980s this has been deemed to be the foremost goal of L2 learning. However, learners also bring their subjective positionings into play in the L2 classroom which, for them, is typically the first time that they are consciously involved in explicitly reflecting upon their L1, their culture(s), their ways of acting, and their ways of thinking. The constant interplay of languages, cultures, and subjective minds involves a blending of spaces which results in momentary positionings of intercultural places by the subject, be it consciously or subconsciously. In these processes, the spatial metaphors of place and displacement become relevant. The notion of blending spaces shifts the emphasis of analysis from the center

ted and positioned by social forces, such as the discourse, but the subject also positions his or her self in the discourse (cf. Section 4.5). The process of positioning (in the active and the passive) is constantly ongoing and takes place on the borderline between the semiotic and the symbolic: “Because of the unstable nature of the symbolic at the border with the semiotic, the subject is not only constantly made and remade, that is, a work in progress, but it constantly interrogates and problematizes itself, because in this symbolic order, the Other is the Self” (Kramsch 2009a: 96). Thus, neither the activity of positioning nor that of being positioned refers to static or essential notions of the subject, as both are highly dynamic and multi-layered and potentially conflictual, as is the subject itself. When the subject tries to account for who he or she is and how he or she became like that, the subject necessarily transforms itself and becomes different from who he or she was when setting out to reflect on the self. The self is always manufactured, structured and sedimented through the language that enables the reproduction of the self. Hence, there is not an essential self to discover but a space of living subjectivity to be socioculturally constructed.

20 | 1 Introduction: The interplay of languages, cultures, and minds of cultural systems of meaning to their margins, to borderline zones and spaces inbetween, as the most relevant spheres where cultural production and subjective positionings take place. The hybrid blended place has, in principle, the potential to harmonize and integrate differential structures, patterns, and categories of meaning. However, this harmonizing potential with regard to intercultural encounters is not absolute in the sense of completely eliminating differences and boundaries, thus integrating the Other into the familiar structures and patterns of construal and robbing it of its authentic voice. Rather, the hybrid place has the potential to undermine the articulation of cultural differences from the margins and to deconstruct seemingly obvious and unambiguous categories implied in automated and unreflected language use by the predominantly monolingual person. In this sense, the notion of interculturality has a subversive potential for which it is important from which position, or with what voice, one speaks and (inter-)acts. This is particularly true for advanced L2 learners whose minds constantly move in a cosmopolitan manner between cultures and, ideally, turn their hybrid and multifaceted belonging to different cultures and discourses into creative endeavors of enunciation (cf. Sections 9.6 and 10.2). Therefore, the hybrid status of the inter and the liminality of their positions facilitate, for them, creative and innovative endeavors beyond the realm of their first language and culture, as they have access to different systems of conceptualization. Instead of reducing differences to their origins, it is necessary to recognize them in their conditions of inequality and, from this basis, constantly renegotiate them anew. In this book, the analysis is oriented around the needs, experiences, and expectations of L2 learners and the complex transformations they will undergo when learning another language and its cultural context. However, the emphasis in this book will be on facilitating stimulating and rich experiences for L2 learners in the L2 classroom and beyond by L2 practitioners, culminating in Chapter 10 which addresses the issue of fostering intercultural competence in a progressive manner. The book thus does not only discuss the blending of spaces in intraand intercultural dimensions but it also tries to blend the space of scholarly research with that of meaningful and constructive teaching and learning in the L2 classroom. The focus of the first five chapters will be on the formative influence of the L1 in terms of cognitive development, conceptual domains, and the intersubjective construction of meaning, as well as the underlying cultural beliefs, values, and frames, because in a formalized L2 environment the learner will initially refer to these internalized strands of knowledge when engaging with the L2 and its cultural context. The subsequent three chapters analyze theoretical concepts of identity, culture, and interculture which are relevant for engaging (and engaged) intercultural L2 learning. The theoretical analyses of previous chapters will be dis-

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cussed in Chapter 9 with a view of their practical application for L2 teaching and learning in an intercultural context. In Chapter 10, a model of progressively fostering and assessing intercultural competence in the L2 classroom and beyond will be presented, based on a critique of the developmental model by Bennett (1993). Thus, the overall structure of the book is inductive, and in terms of content it focuses on pedagogical principles of mediating and assessing intercultural competence in second language learning. In Chapter 2, the acquisition of language as the central semiotic instrument for the construction of human meaning will be analyzed with an emphasis on the process of the subjective internalization of linguistic structures and cultural patterns. Once linguistic concepts are used by the child, his or her mental capacities are fundamentally transformed. The child is now able to reflect on experiences and gain conscious control over his or her mental activities; the mind becomes socialized by language. The rapid acquisition of language in early childhood has attracted a number of theories (for example, behaviorist, nativist, cognitivist, sociocultural), of which sociocultural theory will be discussed in more detail. Sociocultural theory emphasizes the internalization of the linguistic and social norms from relevant others. By internalizing language, the child can use this sociocultural tool as a basis for his or her private purposes in processes of thought and interaction, initially in the form of egocentric speech which remains orientated towards the speech of others (cf. Section 2.2.2). Subsequently, the child modifies the speech experienced from others into a subjective tool from which it is appropriated to inner speech. In contrast to egocentric speech, it is subvocal and operates with minimal, abbreviated syntax in an automated manner in the mind of the subject (cf. Section 2.2.3). It focuses wholly on sense, which is decontextualized, highly abstract, and only meaningful to the subject. Inner speech is a precondition for operating with decontextualized concepts in subvocal, spoken, and written language. The internalization of norms, concepts, values, beliefs, and attitudes of the first language and culture has a profound influence on the subjective constructs of self, world, and others. This affects particularly the acquisition of another language in its sociocultural context. In the initial and intermediate stages, the internalized L1-mediated knowledge will normally form the basis of L2 construction; this is also the case for inner speech which is located in the L1 domain. However, in the course of L2 learning, these internalized linguistic and sociocultural constructs have to be qualified so as to not subsume the Other under the L1-mediated concepts, thus eliminating it in its authenticity. This transformative process on the mind is reflected in the increasing use of the L2 in the course of L2 learning. Chapter 3 focuses on the subjective acquisition and development of concepts and socioculturally based plausibility structures, as mediated by language. In the

22 | 1 Introduction: The interplay of languages, cultures, and minds process of socialization, the child not only acquires language, but through it, he or she learns certain categories which structure social reality and subjective cognition, for instance, by means of concepts, schemata, frames, and conceptual metaphors. These categories contain socioculturally pre-constructed conceptualizations of socially realities which the child unquestioningly internalizes. The agreed patterns of “reality” and the structures of the daily life-world (Lebenswelt) of the native cultural community are thus distributed to all its members, including the inherent plausibility structures. The mind, therefore, is socially and culturally produced in the sense that sociocultural symbols, practices and settings guide and structure the categories and patterns in terms of how people think, act, feel, believe, value, and interact. If language plays such a central role in mental processes, linguistic categories and underlying cultural patterns have an influence on the process of construing worldhood and selfhood; hence, the hypothesis of linguistic relativity will also be discussed (cf. Section 3.5). If the culturally sedimented constructs of the social world are linguistically and discursively mediated, the locus for change also must be language and discourse, including those located in another culture. L2 learning, if it is to be meaningful and effective, cannot ignore these configurations, as they are not only relevant for gaining access to the other life-world, language, and culture, but are also important for construing and contesting one’s own concepts of self. Chapter 4 addresses the collaborative and subjective negotiation for meaning in intersubjective communication. People do not just acquire and internalize categories, as discussed in Chapter 3, but actively and intentionally construct meaning in everyday interaction with others, thereby generating a sphere of intersubjectivity. Intersubjectivity is produced by the ability of interactants to temporarily suspend their own beliefs and attitudes, momentarily adopt the attitudes of others, and as a result change their attitudes, opinions, and positionings. This can be achieved in the spontaneously responsive sphere of intersubjective communication, where the participants act, not individually and independently of one another, but collaboratively by blending mental spaces in order to construe novel meaning (cf. Sections 4.6 & 4.7). The collective conduct of conversation implies that responsibility is shared among the interlocutors and that the course of the interaction itself can therefore determine the contribution of the interlocutors. Interaction does not take place in a vacuum, but, in addition to the immediate setting and the underlying sociocultural context, there are conceptual and social mechanisms for influencing its structure. These mechanisms have developed historically by the thickening of frequently performed activities into habitus (Bourdieu). The habitualized form of linguistic and social patterns in certain contexts becomes recognizable and predictable in terms of structuring the subjective expectations, utterances, and reactions of the interlocutors in the communicative

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event. Examples of such stabilizing generic devices include speech genre, genre, narrative (storied worlds), and discourse which also require the subject to position his or her self in the generic device, as well as being positioned by the other interlocutors on the basis of observable personal characteristics, such as behavior, breadth of knowledge, gesture, voice, and use of language. Genre, narrative, and discourse, by producing a particular kind of knowledge about a topic, create effects of reality and truth, authority and plausibility, and facilitate to a large degree the individual’s participation in society, but also channel, and thus limit, the individual’s encounters with the social world. Narrative, genre, and discourse are not necessarily confined to one culture but they can be, at least partially, crossculturally employed, once a minimum of shared social practice and language has been established, because the specificity of the knowledge domain can cut across boundaries. Such specialized discourse, e.g., for occupational communities, also has the important function of creating and maintaining professional (and personal) identities. Discourse, narrative, and genre can also provide bridges into other sociocultures and languages, because they transcend boundaries. However, despite their superficial similarity, they are filled with other cultural voices. Chapter 5 presents a discussion of some of the major theoretical approaches to analyzing communication, starting with Wittgenstein’s (1953) theory of language games. Austin (1962) and Searle (1969) expand on Wittgenstein’s performative approach to analyzing language in its social context by developing speech act theory, which suggests that language not only carries meaning but ordinary language use creates new realities. Paul Grice (1975) develops more refined maxims for the social use of language, building on the difference of implied and literal meaning in interaction. A much narrower approach to analyzing performative language use is that of conversation analysis, discourse analysis, and critical discourse analysis. Although different in their respective analytical methodologies, they intentionally limit their focus of analysis to micro-aspects of conversation with the objective of arriving at rules and principles of the communicative (micro-)structure in its social context. All three approaches view conversation as one of the most salient and significant modes of discourse. In this chapter, it will be shown that prescriptive rules for language use in sociocultural contexts cannot capture the variability and flexibility of using language in all kinds of intersubjective situations because these are influenced by many different factors, such as social standing, the history of interactions between people, affective states of people, motivations and objectives of interaction, the social and institutional context of interactions, and many more. Therefore, they are only of limited relevance for L2 learning, mainly in the early stages of L2 learning which are more reliant on explicit rules. Alternatives to the narrow focus on micro-structures of communication are provided by the broader concept of communicative competence and by activity theory which

24 | 1 Introduction: The interplay of languages, cultures, and minds focuses on the more inclusive notion of activity (rather than just the verbal communication) between people. While the concept of communicative competence addresses pragmatic issues of communication, such as appropriateness and adequacy of the language used, activity theory suggests that an activity is motivated by the transformation of an object (not only a material object, but also a plan, an idea, or a shared goal) into an outcome which can be employed in L2 learning in the form of role play, group work, cultural games, project-based work, or problem-solving activities. Chapter 6 analyzes theories of identity. This may seem unusual for the constructionist approach adopted in this book since the concept of identity reeks of the kind of essentialism that social constructionism wishes to overcome. However, having been socially constituted, the subject also constructs certain points of view, beliefs, attitudes, voices, and agencies which are frequently repeated and therefore taken by the subject as part of his or her identity. Without notions of self and identity, there would be no need for language as a communicative medium. The subject takes part in many discourses and activities which may emphasize different aspects of identity. Thus, identity is not a single concept. The subject has multiple identities of many facets, as Mead (1967) points out with the distinction of the agentive I and the socially constructed reflective me. Identity, therefore, is not so much a result of subjective constructs as a social product (cf. Hacking 2000: 15). Identity, far from being essentialized, is a multifaceted, dynamic enterprise of the subject and of those around him or her. The subject can, to some degree, fabricate his or her identity by means of autobiographical narration which, because it is simultaneously fictitious and real, leaves room for variation in the past and for initiatives in the future; it also has an inherent aspirational strand. Constructs of identity, be they subjectively construed or socially ascribed, are also influenced by social and cultural forces to which the subject is exposed and in which he or she takes part. These forces provide the basis for the construction and enactment of personal voices and roles by which the subject is identified in different discourses and situations. Identity, therefore, is a constantly ongoing project. Identity is normally taken for granted; it only becomes explicit when problems arise. Since the construct of identity, like every other construct of the mind, relies on language and its underlying cultural patterns, it is prone to fundamental change when alternative concepts of social construction are encountered, for instance, in the process of learning a L2 and its cultural context. Thus, a truly intercultural platform for the subjective construction of a blended identity between languages and cultures can be generated, which serves for a broadening of constructs of hybrid identity in an intercultural dimension. Chapter 7 explores theories of culture which are relevant to intercultural processes of L2 learning. Culture is not a singular entity, but can be perceived as

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operating on many levels, for example, on a macro-level of institutions and organizations, on a meso-level of collective group interaction, and on a micro-level of the signifying subject. Processes of signification, or constructing meaning, are enabled and restricted by the patterns and structures provided by the culture of the community into which the subject has been, or is being, socialized. Culture in this sense, then, is not so much a product as a process that influences the subject (e.g., in thought processes), the cultural patterns (e.g., in scope and forms of beliefs, frames, and attitudes), and the social structures (e.g., facilitation of institutions). Culture is to be understood as neither static nor essential but as constantly emerging through interactive processes within intersubjective social practice. Thus, it is more important what culture does to the minds of people (and what people do to culture when they act and interact) than what it has produced in terms of artifacts (e.g., architecture, landscapes, fashions, cuisine, literature, music, etc.) (cf. Street 1993). Culture in this sense can be seen as a text that provides the script for the activities of members of a cultural community, and that can be read or interpreted by an analyst, such as an ethnographer, just like the text of a novel, poem, or drama can be read and interpreted by a literary critic. Although inherent in culture are constellations of conflict, difference, dynamism, and mixing of influences, culture provides the subject and the collective with a dynamic and coherent system of rules, explicit and implicit, which has been established by the group in a historical dimension in order to ensure their survival. These rules (in the widest sense) involve attitudes, values, beliefs, norms, and behaviors, shared by the group but harbored differently by each individual member. They have been communicated across generations; therefore, these rules are relatively stable but have the potential to change over time (cf. Elias 1939; Matsumoto 2000: 24). Culturally inherited attitudes, norms, beliefs, and behaviors are typically internalized by children without questioning their genesis or validity. Concepts of culture do not, by any means, imply complete homogeneity, but they recognize partial and limited coherence and continuity as well as the impossibility to define, in detail, the distinctions from other cultures. Cultural norms only become explicit when problems arise, for example, through encountering different culturally constructed attitudes, beliefs, values, and behaviors. This is a typical feature of L2 acquisition which, therefore, has to include the discussion of native cultural patterns. Chapter 8 discusses constructs of interculture and the third space. Interculturality implies a subjective (and collective) blending of aspects of diverse cultural norms, beliefs, and attitudes, without any one of the cultures involved assuming a dominant status. This interplay of cultural aspects in the mind of the subject facilitates constructs of a life-world from an emerging subjective position, located in-between cultures. Notions and processes of the hybrid inter, although originating from concrete interaction between two or more sources (e.g., people,

26 | 1 Introduction: The interplay of languages, cultures, and minds cultures, societies, discourses), are usually not reducible to monolithic societal, cultural, or subjective psychological processes since, on the one hand, they constitute something genuinely new, and, on the other hand, they themselves have already been constituted by processes based on hybrid spaces between people, discourses, genres, or narratives. One strand of the dynamic inter includes translational activities which transcend the realm of language and include social and cultural domains; translation is understood not as a simple monodirectional exercise of translating elements of one culture into concepts of the other, but as a complex operation of dialogue and interaction, thus elevating reciprocal translations (as processes of negotiation) to constitutive acts for emerging identities and (inter-)actions. Intercultural third spaces are facilitated from the margins of cultures, rather than from the core, although they assume central relevance for the individual as the emerging space of subjective construction. Third spaces are inextricably linked to the process of understanding the foreign and to the simultaneous process of alienating the familiar. Only on this basis can a careful cognitive departure in the direction of understanding aspects of the target culture take place. Since L2 learners have to bring their subjectivity into the process, because engagement with the L2 and its sociocultural context will affect their constructs of identity and their discursive positionings, their basis of construction will increasingly move to a blended space between the cultures. Space in this context is understood more as a social construct than as a discursive problem; it refers to the collective production of spaces as a multilayered and occasionally contradictory social process, of a specific social and psychological location of cultural practices, and of a dynamic of social relations which implies the dynamism and fragility of space. Chapter 9 will revisit the main issues discussed in previous chapters in relation to L2 teaching and learning, in particular the role of the L1 in L2 acquisition, the function of interlanguage and translating (as opposed to translation), and the relevance of metaphorical competence. For the process of learning a L2 on the basis of the internalized norms, beliefs, and attitudes inherent in the native language, it is helpful if some aspects of the procedural knowledge acquired in the process of socialization can be utilized in order to construct situations in the target language and culture. Configurations lending themselves to temporarily stabilizing context cross-culturally include, for example, conceptual categories and structures (such as concepts, prototypes, frames, schemata, and plausibility structures), as well as socially constructed contexts of interaction (such as narrative, genre, and discourse). In contrast to other school subjects, L2 learning involves the reconstruction and reconfiguration of constructs of the self which is triggered by engaging with other linguistic and sociocultural conceptualizations, other constructs and interpretations of self and Other, other ways of talk-

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ing and acting, etc. Here, efforts of explicit teaching reach their limit, and the learner has to subjectively negotiate meaning between the L1 and L2 constructs which can only be done by rich experiential learning contexts. Rather than treating the learner as a passive pawn in the learning game, he or she has to be considered as a unique subject with his or her own experiences, feelings, memories, desires, ambitions, and motivations. Deep engagement in the learning process can be achieved by guiding students to discover new knowledge, be it collectively or subjectively, in carefully composed circumstances and conditions that promote explorative and independent learning in the zone of proximal development. In Chapter 10, a model of progressively more complex pedagogic principles which can facilitate and guide the fostering of intercultural competence in the process of institutionally learning the second language and culture will be presented which, different from the well-known “Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity” (Bennett 1993), includes dimensions such as the second language, the intercultural third space, and processes of blending linguistic and cultural elements. This model proposes pedagogic principles on how to shape curriculum and instruction with the objective of fostering intercultural competence by encouraging and allowing for the blending of spaces between languages and cultures, based on insights from research in variety of fields, as introduced in previous chapters. The fostering of intercultural competence is a long, intentional, cohesive, and coordinated process, and it typically develops in an overall progressive manner. However, it does not always follow a linear progression but can be cyclical, circular, or even regressive at times. This proposed model of pedagogic principles cannot provide concrete recipes for the direct teaching practice, nor can it claim validity for culture-specific and institutional peculiarities. The purpose of this model is to provide some constructive principles (and not prescriptive rules) for fostering intercultural competence in a general progression form the simple to the complex in the constructionist L2 classroom which can inform the framework of teaching and learning intercultural competence. The different principles of the model can also provide some criteria for the assessment of intercultural competence, since such a complex construct can hardly be assessed in its totality. A particular challenge for assessing intercultural competence is presented by its inherent dimensions of beliefs and attitudes, as well as concepts of intercultural third spaces, inner speech, identity, genre, subject positionings, cultural frames of reference, plausibility structures, blending of spaces, schemata, and frames, each of which is highly dynamic, multi-layered, culturally and subjectively charged, and difficult, if not impossible, to verbalize. In the concluding Chapter 11, the main issues discussed and analyzed in this book will be summarized.

2 First language acquisition and early cognitive development When starting to learn a second language, most adult learners do so, intentionally or not, with reference to their previously internalized linguistic and cultural patterns for construal, as well as social norms and conventions of the L1 community. Since these have been acquired early in life in tandem with the process of developing mental functions, feelings, and plausibility structures, they have a deeply formative influence on all activities carried out by the subject, including learning another language and its use in sociocultural contexts. In this chapter, the acquisition of these influential L1 patterns and structures will be analyzed. Development, change, and transformation are central notions, not only for the complex constructs of culture and society, but also for the no less complex cognitive and emotional capacities of the individual; this is particularly evident in the constantly ongoing activities of learning. Throughout biological life, the mental functions of the individual never cease to develop (and this can include regressive development). The largest leap in individual development, be it physical or psychological, takes place in the first fifteen years of life, during infancy, childhood, and early adolescence. And within this time-span, the first months and years are a crucial period, during which children acquire the basic structures of knowledge through participatory, intersubjective engagement with others and Other. These basic structures are mediated by culturally-constructed symbolic sign systems, among which language is by far the most diverse and complex mediator. Language is a highly sensitive instrument for linking cognitive, semiotic, and social activities. Mediation is a hugely important process by which culturally constructed artifacts (first and foremost language), concepts, values, norms, beliefs, and frames are increasingly used to regulate intra- and intersubjective mental activities (i.e., thought and interaction). The structures and patterns of the first language, society, and culture have repercussions for the process of second language learning because of their normative influence on thought, emotion, and behavior; the L2 is approached from the linguistic, cultural, and psychological bases of the L1-mediated constructs. They are also relevant since the deeply ingrained tacit linguistic, conceptual, and cultural knowledge is usually taken to be universally valid by the person – an assumption which will be fundamentally unsettled by the experience of learning another language. Therefore, this chapter will analyze the acquisition of fundamental concepts and categories through the medium of the first language; a process that constitutes and transforms the subjective mind by immersion in linguistic, social, and cultural practices of the immediate environment of family, peers, playground, and school.

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For children in the pre-linguistic stage of development, knowledge is grounded in their direct and unmediated empirical experiences of their environment. This experiential knowledge is initially non-reflective, and infants cannot intentionally make use of this knowledge. However, the acquisition of language changes this situation: “Once they begin to think conceptually, children are able to reflect upon and therefore gain conscious control over their mental activity. In this way, memory, attention, planning, learning, and rational thought become voluntary” (Lantolf and Thorne 2006: 17). For the mental functions of the infant, the acquisition of language has both liberating and constricting consequences. On the one hand, the child loses his or her natural unmediated, unconscious, direct, and responsive relationship with the material and social environments; on the other, the child gains the freedom of decontextualized, voluntary, and reflective thinking. By acquiring language, the child vastly increases his or her cognitive resources because he or she can structure and control his or her thinking, and transcend the immediate moment by thought and action. Only through the medium of language (including, of course, Braille and natural gesticulated sign languages) and, to a lesser extent, physical activities, can the individual make sense of himself or herself, Other, and others. Language, however, is not just a neutral medium (or, as Andersen [1996] phrased it, “language is not innocent”); it is a tool providing the subject with the basic mental concepts for construing his or her environment (including concepts of self). Language shapes ideas, concepts, experiences, memories, and has a formative influence on emotions and activities. Language also facilitates thought because it has a shaping influence on the externalization of thought. When we want to express our thoughts, we have to fit them into the corset of language and its immanent conceptualizations. There is a continual and complex interplay at work between language and thinking: “The structure of speech does not simply mirror the structure of thought; that is why words cannot be put on by thought like a ready-made garment. Thought undergoes many changes as it turns into speech. It does not merely find expression in speech; it finds its reality and form” (Vygotsky 1986: 219). Language, therefore, serves not just as a medium, but also as a tool for transforming, directing, and controlling voluntary thought. This is due to the fact that congenital in language, derived from social and cultural activities in a historical dimension, are certain ways of interpreting and acting within social and physical surroundings. For example, Choi and Bowerman (1991) analyzed the spatial differences between the acquisition of prepositions in Korean and English by the respective actions of putting an apple in a bowl, a cup on a table, a cassette in a box and a lid on a container, carried out by 20-month old children. In English, the language suggests the perceived similarity of on the table and on the container, using the

30 | 2 First language acquisition and early cognitive development locative preposition on. In Korean, however, the putting of a cup on a table and a lid on a container are not perceived as being in the same spatial relationship. Hence, the children learning Korean have acquired a different concept of spatial relationship from those encoded in English. Bowerman (1996: 169) suggests that the developing minds of children seem to have a high degree of plasticity and are susceptible to “language specific principles of semantic categorization.” This shows that meaning is not a perceptible feature of reality, nor is it inherent in words. Notions of “reality” are generated by assigning meaning to objects, actions, experiences, memories, and circumstances. Meaning, once assigned, can be differentiated or even reversed and is therefore never stable, neither for the individual nor for the cultural community. Rather, it is constantly checked for viability through processes of socialization and individuation. Language is the central symbolic system of any given human culture and society, and thus is very closely woven into the cultural and social fabric of life; it is not a neutral system that exists independently of people and their activities. Therefore, it would not make sense to learn a second language purely as a closed linguistic system. In fact, sociocultural patterns, structures, values, attitudes, and beliefs are inscribed in the language of a given community in a historical dimension and are partly reflected in the specific usage of elements of language within a certain culture and society.¹ For example, the German term Heimat implies a certain affective attachment for the subject to the geo-social environment he or she considers home; the English translations of home town, country, home, native country, or homeland can only express certain aspects of the complex semantic ensemble that is implied in the term Heimat. This means that the individual, too, is not a self-enclosed atomistic entity possessing an inner sovereignty, living his or her separate life in isolation from others. The individual can only position himself or herself and construe notions of selfhood and worldhood in dialogic interaction and in relation with others. Thus, a comprehensive theoretical framework for analyzing people’s use of language, be it the L1 or L2, must be “based on the idea that our mastery and use of language is crucially dependent on the fact that we are beings which are embodied as well as situated within a culture of shared practices” (Zlatev 1997: 1–2; emphasis in the original). The embodied aspect of our existence lends subjectivity to our actions, interactions, and feelings, in that they are being construed, be it consciously or subconsciously, on the basis of our subjective interpretation of our memories, ex-

1 Both the terms culture and society do not refer to monolithic and essentialist concepts, as will be discussed in Chapter 7. No culture and society (and its language) exists in isolation; they are always interrelated on many levels with other cultures, societies, and languages.

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periences, intentions, and desires. The situated aspect relates to the fundamental intersubjectivity of our lives, because we are what we are only through (symbolic) interaction with others. By almost completely relying on socioculturally constructed semiotic tools, the psyche of the individual is placed on the borderline between the self and the outside world: “Because internalization is the turning inward of some process that formerly had a social function, the internalization of social speech equals the socialization of the intellect. In going through the stages of natural psychology, mediated activity and internalization, the child’s mind is transformed” (Watson 1995: 62). Sociocultural constructs, once internalized, are a crucial part of the human mind; they provide the most important framework for mental representation and reflective thought. There is considerable debate about the mind’s existence (cf. Schlinger 2005) because it cannot be directly accessed. However, the fact that every human is endowed with a personal awareness seems to provide evidence for the reality of the mind. Cognitive neuroscientists are of the opinion that the human brain facilitates the workings of the mind: “[M]ind is neither nothing more nor nothing less than a function of the material brain” (Uttal 2011: 3) which “arises out of billions of component parts” (Uttal 2011: 6). They assume that the mind’s functions can be measured in terms of neural activity because “any mental or cognitive activities and processes as well as those that control behavior are the functions, the outcomes, or the results of the activities of the nervous system” (Uttal 2011: 5). Mind, therefore, can be defined as a profoundly intrapersonal phenomenon which can be examined by neuroscientific methods of analyzing the brain’s neural activities, but also by means of introspective autobiographical reports or by observing a person’s behavior (although these are considered to be deeply flawed methodologies by neuroscientists, due to the variability, subjectivity, insufficiency and inadequacy of these methods of verbalization or observation). The mind of the person is hence located in the brain. However, this position can be seen as reductionist because the workings of the mind also include emotions and feelings which are related to the body.² According to neuroscientist Damasio (1994: 225), “mind derives from the entire organism as ensemble.” Without being embodied, our mind would be different in structure and function because “the body contributes more than life support and modu-

2 In contrast to feelings, emotions have a socially constructed component. Bodily feelings associated with being tired, or wanting to go to the bathroom, are not considered emotions because they are not embodied expressions of judgments about one’s social situation and are therefore not tied up with the moral order of a society where they have normative force (cf. Harré and Gillett 1994: 147–161).

32 | 2 First language acquisition and early cognitive development latory effects to the brain. It contributes a content that is part and parcel of the workings of the normal mind” (Damasio 1994: 226; emphasis in the original). The embodied mind thus cannot be reduced to rational cognition, agency, judgment and moral value but must include bodily aspects such as feelings and emotions which guide us in our selection of relevant information and subsequent action in order to ensure the survival of our organism.³ However, the self-reflective mind can only come into existence and function through interaction with others which means that it is interpersonally constituted. Symbolic means such as language are a necessary precondition for the reflective mind’s operations in terms of categorization, memory, experience and intention; at the same time, language influences the workings of the mind, as, for example, Bowerman and Choi (1974; 1996; 2003; cf. above and Section 5.3.1) demonstrated with the different nature of spatial distinctions made by children with Korean or English as the L1: “As semantic categories are formed [in the mind of the child], the speaker becomes increasingly skilled at making the rapid automatic judgments they require” (Bowerman and Choi 2003: 417) in terms of culture-specific language use and behavior. Thus, grammatical patterning with semantic correlates clearly have an effect on implicit categorization in the mind; as soon as symbols, including linguistic signs, become involved, the way infants think and behave changes. However, this link between categorization and mind transcends the tool of language because “we think in line with how we speak, [so] that the clues are not all in the language but are distributed throughout the context of language learning” (Levinson 2003: 43). Hence, the mind provides the subject with cognitive perspectives which are very personal to the subject, although the mind is not necessarily conscious of these influences. Therefore, the concepts of mind and consciousness are not identical phenomena; consciousness relates to the more passive aspect of having perceptions, thoughts, and feelings, whereas mind refers to the more active and introspective aspect of applying (consciously or not) perceptions, thoughts, and feeling to subjective activities. For example, when we are ‘out of our mind’ the environment no longer has a personalized meaning, but we are still the passive recipients of incoming sensory information.⁴ The subject integrates the cognitive perspectives into a

3 Damasio (1994) seems to consider body and mind to be given entities which develop in a dialectically dependent manner. However, the embodied mind constructs not only the ‘reality’ but it also constructs the body (and itself) by means of socioculturally produced and sedimented symbolic signs to which it has access. 4 This situation can actively be sought by people who, for example, are taking psychedelics in order to find transcendental visions, or by participants of a rave, who are yearning for a world stripped of all cognitive content, so that the strength of the abstract stimulation – the beat, the music, the movement – can become the dominant feature.

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notion of subjectivity which is embodied and thus also includes the domains of affect, emotion, and bodily feelings. Subjectivity is not given from birth but it is mediated by the subject (consciously or subconsciously) through symbolic forms; it is constantly constructed by the subject and positioned by social forces such as the discourse, but the subject also positions himself or herself in the discourse. Even before language and its use fundamentally transform the workings of the mind, the infant must have acquired basic skills of perception, categorization, relational understanding, problem solving, memory, and an understanding of other individuals as intentional agents like the self. The existence of these prelinguistic forms of consciousness and awareness can be deduced from symbolic means which infants use to manipulate their environment, such as pointing gestures and imitation. Infants follow the gaze or pointing of adults, as well as urging adults to gaze towards a certain object or making grasping movement of the hand while looking at an object (hence clearly indicating that they want the adult to bring the object to them; cf. Section 2.1). This means that nonlinguistic joint attentional behavior emerges in individuals as a group, just as subsequent language acquisition does (and there seems to be a link between the two; cf. Tomasello 2003: 49). However, grammar and terminology, including the inherent rules, codes, and conventions of language use, precede the individual’s existence, and the subject has to adapt these given structures and meanings to his or her particular needs in any given situation in order to think, or make herself or himself understood. At the same time, the mind of the infant has to adapt according to the requirements of the language in terms of its grammar, conceptualizations, and lexical system. Language acquisition also implies the acquisition of the culturally-specific, perspective nature of linguistic symbols, including plausibility structures. So the subject’s mind is, to a large extent, structured by external sociocultural categories. In this sense, mediality is a crucial precondition for mentality. Mediality also plays an important role in emotion, feeling, and, to a lesser degree, in affect which are represented as a very subjective reality to the individual. Whereas the term emotion relates to the physiological and behavioral aspects, affect tends to relate to the purely psychological state that carries positive or negative valence. Emotion refers to a (passing) state of body that has mental, bodily, or behavioral indicators, of which the subject can be aware and which can be verbalized. Since emotions can be consciously experienced or even managed (e.g., by feigning an emotional state), development of cognitive processes and physiological changes have an impact on the range of construal and (self-) representation of emotions. Emotions are experienced and expressed in the body and in the mind, and both the mind and body enable and constrain that experience (cf. Theodosius 2012: 64). Emotions are very private experiences which are as elusive as the mind in terms of valid assessment and measurability; they “can

34 | 2 First language acquisition and early cognitive development be only weakly inferred from introspection or behavior but cannot be directly measured” (Uttal 2011: 145). However, like cognition, emotions can also be coconstructed by persons, not only in terms of empathy and antipathy, but also with regard to shared emotional reactions to utterances, memories, experiences, objects, etc. The representation of emotions to the self through inner speech (cf. Section 2.2.3) socializes the experience of private emotions to some extent because the sociocultural semiotic of language gets involved. Hence, one strand of emotion research focuses on the organismic approach (e.g., research in psychology and neuroscience), whereas another approach focuses on intersubjective and interactional elements (e.g., research in sociology, anthropology, applied linguistics). In this book, the latter approach is adopted because emotions are crucial to the way we relate to other people, shaping psychological and bodily boundaries between the “I,” the “we,” and the “other,” but also producing the effect of collectivities (cf. Ahmed 2012). Affect, by contrast, “is understood as a broader concept than emotion, covering phenomena ranging from larger emotional episodes to sudden pleasure and pains, to momentary likes and dislikes” (Ruusuvuori 2013: 331). Unlike emotions, affects do not have a strong social dimension, although affects can spread between persons in terms of igniting rage, inciting shame, evoking tenderness, or exciting fear. They constitute a moment of unformed and unstructured potential; affects are pre-personal and pre-conscious, and therefore they cannot be fully verbalized. Feelings represent a subcategory of emotions. They are sensations that are checked against the subject’s previous experiences; therefore, they tend to be personal and biographical, and the person is consciously aware of them. Ludwig Wittgenstein (1953) vividly illustrates the transformative influence of language on the feeling of bodily sensations with the example of pain. Sensations such as pain can only be expressed, even to the inner self, by using linguistic categories for the description of the sensation of pain. Pain is a direct, linguistically and conceptually unmediated sensation. It can lead to spontaneous expressions of pain (“Ow!”) which provide the subject with basic evidence for the ascription of pain. But the translation of the directly-felt sensation into the external symbolic system of language transforms the sensation of pain itself. The subject’s grasp of the concept of pain is dependent on the ability to make judgments about oneself, and about others to whom the pain is verbalized. This basic ability of translating directly-felt sensations and feelings into the semiotic system of language is already explicitly taught to children: “How do words refer to sensation? (. . . ) A child has hurt himself and he cries; and then adults talk to him and teach him exclamations and, later, sentences [to express the feeling of pain: its degree, location, sensation]. They teach the child new pain-behaviour” (Wittgenstein 1953: §244; emphasis in the original).

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The verbalization of pain socializes, and hence transforms, the intimately felt sensation of pain. “So you are saying the word ‘pain’ really means ‘crying’? – On the contrary: the verbal expression of pain replaces crying and does not describe it” (Wittgenstein 1953: § 244; emphasis added). Therefore, the sensation of pain is not completely private because one only knows what pain is in relation to the experiences of others. This example illuminates the transformative impact of the sociocultural instrument of language on the cognitive and psychological structures of the subject, including on his or her most intimate feelings. Once acquired as the central semiotic system, language structures and influences the mind, feelings, emotions, understandings, and constructions of the subject to a large degree (cf. Section 3.5). Gergen (1999) further underlines this mechanism with an experiment that expands on Wittgenstein’s notion of translating the sensation of pain into linguistic expression of same. Gergen starts his argument by criticizing the essentializing observation of Elaine Scarry (1985: 4) that, “Physical pain does not simply resist language but actively destroys it, bringing about an immediate reversion to a state anterior to language, to the sounds and cries a human being makes before language is learned.” Scarry insinuates that pain is a condition which humans experience universally in the same manner, regardless of history and culture. However, in a diachronic perspective, one can observe that prior to the development of modern anesthetics, people were able to endure painful surgical procedures, and pain was, in medieval Christendom, often welcomed as an expression of religious devotion. In a synchronic perspective, there is, according to Gergen (1999: 104) evidence of “significant variations in the constitution of pain across different ethnic groups; Italian and Jewish patients, for example, often evidence far more pain than the more stoic New England Yankee culture.” This would suggest that pain is not just naturally experienced and linguistically represented, but it is also culturally constructed. Thus, the directly-felt sensation of pain requires interpretation which inevitably involves language and culture. While psychologists such as Jean Piaget view language as a semiotic system that can be used to express knowledge acquired through interaction with the physical world, Vygotsky sees language as socially constituted and subjectively internalized speech. Vygotsky could show in his experiments that speech grows into children from their social environment: “The primary function of speech, in both children and adults, is communication, social contact. The earliest speech of the child is therefore essentially social” (Vygotsky 1986: 34–35). Hence, the infant is not externalizing internal thought, as suggested by Piaget (1970b: 59), but rather internalizing external concepts and patterns that he or she has experienced. This, however, is not done by simply duplicating the externally experienced constructs; rather, this process is transformative because the child adapts the external config-

36 | 2 First language acquisition and early cognitive development urations to his or her particular needs and circumstances. “Thought is not merely expressed in words; it comes into existence through them” (Vygotsky 1986: 218). Only after accomplishing the internalization process of particular linguistic and conceptual items can the subject use these tools in a particular subjective way to externalize reflective thought. However, one cannot assume that the internal and external processes are distinct and unconnected; both are interrelated in a dialectical manner. “The bi-directional process of internalization and externalization, mediated through semiotic artifacts, both idealizes the objective and objectifies the ideal” (Lantolf and Thorne 2006: 155). Thus, according to a Vygotskian view, language and consciousness are not part of the inner self but are lodged within patterns of social activity. Consequently, it is the social activity system and underlying cultural patterns, rather than the individual, that should be the primary focus of linguistic and psychological studies, including L2 research and classroom practice. In this chapter, the sociocultural acquisition process of language and concepts will be analyzed with emphasis on the massive impact on the cognitive, behavioral, and emotional development of the subject.

2.1 First language acquisition The processes of basic transformation of bodily-produced feelings into linguistically structured, and hence intra- and interpersonally comprehensible utterances, dominate the early socialization of the infant in the pre-linguistic stages. This includes the incidental acquisition of linguistically mediated concepts, categories, and schemata which exert an increasing influence on mental development. In these processes that contribute to the formation of the mind, the child is not just a passive recipient of language, but an active participant. Even before the infant has acquired any language, he or she has developed bodily sensations and emotions which will influence his or her behavior. Throughout the life-span of the individual psyche, mind and body influence one another so that the Cartesian bodymind dualism breaks down. Socialization is only made possible by some form of bodily, affective, and preconscious differentiation from others, for instance, parents and other significant individuals, such as older siblings, playmates, or relatives. “The very first of all cultural objects, and the one by which all the rest exist, is the body of the other person as the vehicle of a form of behavior” (MerleauPonty 1945: 348, cited in Gallagher 2008: 287). Zlatev (2008: 301; emphasis in the original) claims that through physical interaction with others, “the infant develops mimetic schemas, which constitute body-based, pre-linguistic, consciously accessible representations that serve as the child’s first concepts.”

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This is an important claim for cognitive linguists who increasingly work with the concept of embodiment. Zlatev (2008: 301) goes on to suggest that “mimetic schemas possess a basic intersubjectivity which can serve as the foundation for developing a conventional normative semiotic system, i.e. language.” Hence, the use of language cannot be separated from the mind and subjectivity of the user who fills language with his or her subjective feelings, intentions, desires, memories, and fantasies. Kramsch (2009a: 18) comments: “One could say that becoming a subject means becoming aware of the gap between the words that people utter and the many meanings these words could have.” In intersubjective interaction, the gap has to be mentally filled by the subject on the spot which positions his or her self in a certain manner (cf. Section 4.5). Both mimetic schemata and the child’s increasing ability to differentiate between self and other trigger a developmental cascade in several dimensions. The infant acquires motor skills (mastering of bodily movements, such as lifting the head, sitting up, conscious grasping, and, at a later stage, standing and walking), cognitive skills (formation of categories and concepts such as father, mother, people, teddy bear, etc., and using these to regulate thought and activities), linguistic skills (understanding communication directed at him or her, and producing his or her first own utterances), emotional competences (expressing and regulating his or her own feelings), and social competences (ability to make contact with others, to interact and cooperate with others) (cf. Winkel, Petermann, and Petermann 2006: 237). Most of this acquisition process is based on incidental and implicit perceptual learning, repeating, and copying the actions of others. One aspect of the acquisition of motor skills consists of the infant increasingly insisting on initiating his or her own activities, for example, when he or she begins to master the skill of walking. At this stage, at about nine months of age, the infant clearly has some awareness of the social dimension of his or her existence. He or she tries to communicate not only in non-linguistic ways, but also expresses interpersonal functions in simple utterances, such as pleasure or displeasure, greeting people, demanding attention, or getting people to do things. Usually, each utterance stands for a specific function; however, the infant’s protolanguage is characterized by the absence of grammar. The infant also begins to develop knowledge about the functional properties of objects which allows prediction about how the object will respond and behave in the future, as Madole and Oakes (2005: 279–280) explain: “If an infant notices that her rubber ducky has squeaked when it was squeezed the last five times she took a bath, then she can predict that her rubber ducky should squeak when squeezed in the future. However, before such predictions can be made, infants must be able to recognize the correlation between an object’s appearance and its function.” This example illustrates that children begin to develop knowledge of categories and

38 | 2 First language acquisition and early cognitive development plausibility structures through direct personal experiences. Children at this stage are also engaged in building complex blends between the concepts of which they are trying to make sense (cf. Section 4.7). These pre-linguistic developments are followed by a great stream of word learning, of mastering both expressive speech and denotative labeling (cf. Messer 1994). The first stage of this complex developmental process of language acquisition has already started long before the baby utters his or her first word. It covers the period from birth, when the baby produces his or her first sound, the birth cry, to approximately twelve months. By the age of four days, babies can already differentiate their native language from another language on the basis of language-specific rhythm and prosody, even if they are not familiar with the speaker’s voice, or his/her accent (cf. Guasti 2002: 24). However, between six and twelve months of age, this ability to discriminate foreign sounds declines as infants have to focus on the sounds of the language they hear most. It has been shown that “infants listen longer to infant-directed speech sequences that reflect natural prosodic units” (Vihman 2009: 16) of the main language the child is exposed to. The first weeks and months are characterized by implicit perceptual acquisition of the sounds of the L1. In the first eight weeks of life, infants do not produce a wide range of sounds; the principal sounds are cries. However, crying is used by infants as a means of communication, and parents usually develop astonishingly exact skills at determining different types of cry, for example, for hunger, pain, seeking attention, or other. This initial phase is followed at about the age of three months by cooing, i.e., the production of vowel sounds such as oooo which vary in tone and volume and which are normally associated with pleasure (cf. Catell 2007: 3–4). In these first two stages of vocalization, the infant produces random sounds which are generally believed to reflect sounds of any human language, not just the specific language of the child’s speech community. At about six months of age, the cooing stage develops into a phase characterized by babbling, consisting of syllable sequences such as bababa. It has been suggested that the immaturity of the infant’s speech apparatus, which is not yet capable of producing speech-like sounds, may be responsible for the delay in speech production. However, deaf infants engage in “manual babbling” at the same stage of development. This observation may suggest that it is “the maturation of the neural substrate supporting language that is responsible for babbling” (Guasti 2002: 47). This leads Guasti to conclude that, “Humans are born with special sensitivity not to sounds, per se, but to the particular units, structures, and regularities found in natural languages, regardless of the modality of expression” (Guasti 2002: 47).

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Babbling accounts for a large part of the infant’s early vocalization up to the stage when infants produce their first words, at approximately the age of twelve months. The babbling stage can be differentiated into the first stage of repeated sequences of babbling (known as canonical babbling) and the later stage of producing more varied sequences of sound (known as variegated babbling) (cf. FosterCohen 1999: 22). Babbling seems to be a universal feature of infants at this stage of development because: “The onset of babbling and the types of sounds produced seem to be universal and are similar regardless of culture or of whether the child can hear or not. This suggests that babbling is the result of maturational processes rather than learning” (Lund 2003: 41). In the activity of babbling, infants subconsciously test their articulatory capacities; they also discover and practice the sounds and sound combinations of the language they are most exposed to, eventually leading to the production of phonemes and words. Children need adequate scaffolding by parents or other adults in terms of developing their utterances (if they can be called that) in the direction of appropriate sounds, morphemes, or even protowords of their first language. There is, however, much difference in the provision and quality of scaffolding by adults, largely influenced by their sociocultural background, as, for example, Heath (1983; 2009) has analyzed. Whereas American middle class parents spend a lot of time providing structured phonetic scaffolding for their young children, African-American working class parents seem to have a different approach: As children make cooing or babbling sounds, adults refer to them as “noise,” and no attempt is made to interpret these sounds as words or communicative attempts on the part of the baby. Adults believe they should not have to depend on their babies to tell them what they need or when they are uncomfortable; adults know, children only “come to know.” (Heath 2009: 354). This is a very crude and generalizing statement with regard to rather monolithically construed social (and racial) differences in the background of parents of young children. There certainly have to be exceptions in both directions in socio-pedagogical studies like Heath’s. However, if such differences do exist as a consequence of these different attitudes and behaviors with regard to the first cooing and babbling sounds of children, the onset of word formation and speech can vary. In fact, there is evidence that infants understand many words before they are actually able to produce any. Before the end of their first year of life, most babies understand a few frequently repeated words; for example, they wave their hands when someone says “bye-bye” (cf. Bee 2000: 231). Thus, infants’ lingualization, i.e., the process of acquiring the linguistic system in the wider sense, including the socially appropriate use of language, can be said to begin with the babbling stage when the infant produces sounds that begin to approximate the sounds of his or her native language.

40 | 2 First language acquisition and early cognitive development When infants are about nine months old, they extend their range of communicative tools from producing sounds to using gestures. An infant who points at something and makes grasping movements of the hand is clearly “asking” for the object in order to elicit a certain response from others. Adults around the child will interpret the grasping gesture as an act of pointing, indicating the child’s desire to have that object. The child then internalizes the significance accorded to the gesture by adults and now performs the grasping gesture for them more consciously and intentionally. In doing so, the child demonstrates that he or she can consciously send out signals to others, and obviously anticipates a certain reaction. Although pointing does not constitute a sign system, it is a sign form that the child begins to master. It clearly shows that the child has begun to develop an “internal plane” of consciousness (cf. Wertsch 1985: 65). It also indicates that there is no direct reciprocal connection between thought and speech because there is “speech” without thought (infants in the crying, cooing, and babbling stages), and there is also thought without speech. But those two areas of thought and speech overlap in verbal thought, and this is coincident with language. Since we can share only what we articulate and communicate, it is this linguistic dimension alone that has historical validity. The one-word stage for infants typically starts at about ten to twelve months of age. When learning to produce words, children have to perform four separate tasks, namely segmenting the speech stream into units that represent recognizable words, learning the sound-image of words, learning the syntactic properties of words, and associating meaning with forms of words. The early words produced by infants are often not like the adult versions of the word but are approximations of them. The rate of learning words is initially very slow (3–4 months for ten words) but at some point between 18 and 21 months a “vocabulary explosion” (Winkel, Petermann, and Petermann 2006: 237) or “language explosion” (Siegler 1998: 152) occurs. Normally, a two-year-old child adds an average of ten words per day to the 500–600 words of vocabulary he or she has already acquired. An average six-year-old has acquired a vocabulary of approximately 14,000 words to which he or she adds another 3,000 words annually from school-going age (cf. Kuczaj II 1999: 133). This amounts to knowledge of a huge range of vocabulary when compared to the much slower rate of learning vocabulary in the L2. At this rate of L1 learning, children frequently make a quick guess about a word’s denotation on the basis of experience and of knowledge of known words. This phenomenon has come to be called fast mapping. If, for instance, “a child is first exposed to the word beige in the context of the instruction ‘bring me the beige one, not the blue one’, the child might conclude that beige is a colour term and that it is a colour other than blue (assuming the child knows the denotation of the word blue)” (Kuczaj II 1999: 141; emphasis in the original).

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The child therefore increasingly gains additional experience with a word and its conventional uses by comparing new words to the meaning of familiar words, thus constantly refining meanings. The child’s increasing awareness that words can denote things, people, and actions fosters more proactive word-learning with a greater degree of intent and effort. In this process, the knowledge of morphosyntax, lexicon, and the stock of experience also expands and refines rapidly, leading to higher cognitive abilities in the child, in that the representational nature of thought is influenced by the manner in which language organizes the construction of self, Other, and world. The exact mechanism of how children acquire a lexicon is still being researched. When segmenting the flow of speech into words, the child first has to identify useful chunks of language, such as whole utterances, beginnings and ends of utterances, rhythmic stretches, or certain intonational packages (cf. Peters 2009: 44–45), and then associate meaning with the corresponding lexical items. One explanation for how children acquire the meaning of words and phrases focuses on the theory that infants learn words by forming hypotheses about their meanings and then testing them. When children notice a co-occurrence between a word and the object it refers to, or between a word and an object being pointed at, they will form hypotheses about what could be meant by that word. Subsequently, they will test them in new contexts and either verify or falsify their hypotheses (cf. Bruner 1975; Bruner, Olver, and Greenfield 1966). This approach, however, cannot explain the child’s construal of meaning for abstract or mass nouns referring to non-perceivable constructs. It also does not explain a situation where children can form multiple hypotheses about the meaning of a word they hear in a given context. For example, the word can refer to an object as a whole (e.g., a table), to its parts (e.g., its legs), or the material that it is made out of (e.g., wood, PVC, metal, etc.). It seems to be a cross-culturally observable feature that children’s early productive vocabulary consists mainly of nouns. This can be explained by the “wordto-world” procedure whereby the word is mapped onto the object it refers to (cf. Guasti 2002: 81). Abstract lexical items such as verbs, adjectives, conjunctions, etc. are actively used only at a later stage since the concrete object-relationship is missing. Thus, children must rely on other evidence, and that is provided by the syntax of a sentence. As soon as children begin to combine words, their lexicon starts to grow massively (cf. Gilette et al. 1999: 139). It seems likely that the emergence of syntax accelerates the acquisition of the lexicon. Children start to use verbs meaningfully, based on the syntactic context and the meaning of nouns they already know. This suggests that children bootstrap the meaning of verbs onto syntax, that is, they can infer the category (and hence meaning) of a lexical item from its position in a sentence, provided they understand some of the nouns

42 | 2 First language acquisition and early cognitive development used in that sentence. For example, in the sentence Frank hits Oliver, it is obvious from the placement and syntactic marking of Frank and Oliver who the guilty party is. The term “syntactic bootstrapping” was coined by Lila Gleitman (1990). In direct opposition to Bowerman (1974) and Pinker (1984), who suggest that children develop an understanding of syntax on the basis of semantic information, Gleitman (1990) suggests that children attend to the structural regularities of the language they are exposed to from a young age. Thus, they develop sensitivity to syntactic and semantic correspondences that are inherent in the linguistic structure. The key for the process of bootstrapping seems to be the initial word-to-world procedure. With this procedure, children will have acquired basic scaffolding around nouns on which they then can construct partial sentential representation by inferring the meaning of other words used in a sentence, such as verbs or adjectives, from the syntactic cues. This basis can be expanded by associating words and phrases with other words and phrases or morphemes that occur with them. For instance, in learning a language where nouns have different genders (for example, German, French, or Russian), the child must not only learn the correct articles (which infer gender, number, and case) but also the corresponding pronouns and adjectival endings for each of the different cases, both in singular and plural. This is possible because children have the general ability to develop associations between articles, words, and pronouns that frequently occur together, whereas second language learners, especially in adulthood, have to explicitly learn these complex and potentially confusing constellations. The differences in syntax between languages also implies that the mechanism of syntactic bootstrapping is always specific to a language. In the process of acquiring a fair amount of lexical items, children start to expand their single word stage and start producing two-word phrases at about the age of 18–24 months. These two-word utterances are called “telegraphic speech” (Haslett 1989: 23) and usually consist of content words (verbs, nouns); function words (articles, conjunctions) are generally not yet produced. This two-word or multiple-word stage marks the starting point for the development of syntax. Once children start to combine words, they learn grammar very quickly and “pass through a number of phases that are characterised by increasing complexity of grammar and sentence length” (Lund 2003: 43). At about 30 months, children start to use more complex grammar and enter a phase of “grammar explosion” (Bee 2000: 237–239). There is evidence that children in this phase do not simply imitate adult speech but actually learn, by trial and error of forming assumptions, the rules of grammar so that they are able to independently produce increasingly complex sentences in a grammatically and syntactically correct manner, including the use of conjunctions (cf. Pinker 2003). In addition to acquiring the structure

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of the language in terms of grammar and syntax, children also “acquire entire systems of mappings, blends, and framing, along with their concomitant language manifestations” (Fauconnier 1997: 189; cf. Section 4.7). The success of these processes is even more astonishing when we consider that language directed to small children by adults is frequently deficient (e.g., baby talk, motherese, parentese). However, during the process of acquiring the standard language, the child’s protolanguage is, at any given time, a legitimate system in its own right (cf. Catell 2007). The child’s linguistic development is not a linear process of producing fewer and fewer incorrect structures. Rather, the child’s language is systematic in that the child constantly forms hypotheses on the basis of the input he or she receives. These hypotheses are then actively tested in utterances; based on the feedback received, these hypotheses are continuously revised, reshaped, or abandoned. In the famous “wug” experiment of 1958, conducted at a time before generative linguistics became dominant, Jean Berko Gleason (2004) showed that children learn language not as a series of isolated, discrete items but as an integrated system. In this experiment, children aged six or seven years were shown drawings of imaginary creatures with novel names or people performing mysterious activities. For example, they were told “This is a wug. Now there is another one. There are two of them. There are two _____” (Berko Gleason 2004: 256), or “This is a dog with quirks on him. He is all covered with quirks. What kind of dog is he? He is a _____ dog” (Berko Gleason 2004: 159), or “This is a man who knows how to bod. He is bodding. Yesterday he did the same thing. What did he do yesterday? Yesterday, he _____” (Berko Gleason 2004: 159). The correct answers are “wugs,” “quirky,” and “bodded,” and by completing the sentences correctly, the children demonstrated that they knew the rules for the formation of plural, derived adjectives, and the simple past tense in English. In her experiments, Berko Gleason discovered that English-speaking children as young as four years of age correctly applied rules to the formation of plurals, present progressive, third person singular, and possessives. By being able to apply these patterns to expressions they had never before encountered, the children demonstrated that their language was not based solely on a list of memorized words, but that they were able to creatively apply rules to new contexts. In the process of language acquisition, the child grows, so to speak, out of the relatively general (or universal) realm of protolanguage and into the relatively specific structure of his or her native tongue of which he or she becomes an increasingly competent user because of the ability to successfully project certain parameters. For example, the English language has a very strict positioning of subject, verb, and object in sentences. This is so to avoid ambiguities in the roles of agent (doer) and patient (sufferer) of actions expressed. In other languages this

44 | 2 First language acquisition and early cognitive development is not the case. For example, German has a more flexible word order because the cases of nouns and pronouns, including corresponding inflection of verbs, are more marked than in English. Therefore, the agent is always in the nominative case whereas the patient is expressed in the accusative (or dative/genitive) case. Thus, a rule of projection would be that the morphological endings of words can be neglected for English, whereas a child acquiring German would stress exactly the opposite features (cf. Edmondson 1999: 26–27). For example, the English clause “The student donates his books to the library” could be translated into German as Der Student schenkt seine Bücher der Bibliothek. However, in German one can put semantic emphasis by positioning an item at the beginning; if one wants to emphasize the receiver of the books it is possible to say Der Bibliothek schenkt der Student seine Bücher (‘*To the library the student donates his books’), or if one wants to emphasize the objects in question, one could say Seine Bücher schenkt der Student der Bibliothek (‘*His books the student donates to the library’). The flexibility in word order is facilitated here by the case marking in German, so that, unlike in English, the grammatical subject does not have to be positioned in the first place in the sentence but in fact any expression can occupy the first position, including prepositional phrases or subordinate clause, as long as the conjugated form of the verb remains in second position in the German main clause. Growing into any language implies that the infant and child are not just regurgitating what he or she hears; children are highly creative in what they construct linguistically, as Pinker explains: [C]hildren’s language errors such as braked and holded, which could not have been parroted from their parents’ speech, have served as a vivid reminder that the mind of the child is not a sponge, but actively assembles words and concepts into new combinations guided by rules and regularities. (. . . ) The ingredients of language are words and rules. Words in the sense of memorized links between sound and meaning; rules in the sense of operations that assemble the words into combinations whose meaning can be computed from the meanings of the words and the way they are arranged. (Pinker 2003: xi, 300; emphasis in the original)

These rules are productive in the sense that they specify a string of kinds of words and not just a string of actual words which allows for the spontaneous production of new sentences and texts. The words contained by the rules are, of course, symbolic and hence abstract, which allows for talking about all kinds of things; events, feelings, thoughts, etc. Furthermore, according to Pinker (2003: 7), the rules are combinatorial, meaning that every position in the sentence offers a choice of possible words, thus facilitating an immense number of syntactically correct and semantically meaningful utterances. Pinker (2003: 7) calculates that these rules allow for 6.4 trillion possible five-word sentences in the English language.

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By the age of five years, most children can give commands, ask questions, report events, and create stories about imaginary events, using correct syntax and grammatical markers. It is generally accepted that by this age children have mastered the basic structures of the language they have acquired (cf. Schumann 1997: 34). While continuing to learn vocabulary at the rate of approximately ten items a day, their acquisition of linguistic structures slows down. However, this is mainly because they have already internalized most of the basic structures of the L1 so that their learning now focuses on more complex linguistic structures, such as the passive voice, the subjunctive, and subordinate clauses which take more time to acquire than the simpler foundational morpho-syntactical and grammatical structures. This increasing complexity of grammar acquisition is complemented by the child’s ability to use language in a widening social environment. Using language in a greater variety of situations implies that children begin to develop sociolinguistic competence, i.e., they are learning how to use language appropriately in different contexts. Children at the age of five are typically able to defend their place in the playground in an aggressive voice, while being polite when talking to their grandparents. In the developmental phase of the first four or five years of life, the child experiences his or her self to be at the center of gravity for all (inter-)action and understanding. This can be seen by the child’s ability to deal with increasingly complex conceptual-grammatical relations and deixis. The main types of text the child is exposed to and engages in are dialogues and narratives. Narratives are complex forms of text and are used by children even younger than three years of age as a means of problem-framing, which the child expresses by asking questions such as “How come?”. Narratives, such as fairy tales, serve as an instrument for invoking morals and ethics, but also as a tool for developing the skills of abstract reflection.⁵ Within the first five years of development, children learn an enormous number of words, and master the complex skills of using language grammatically, phonetically, and syntactically to a high degree of competence so that they can understand and produce a vast array of novel sentences. Parallel to this process of learning words and working out the basic grammatical and syntactical rules, young children also acquire knowledge about the socio-pragmatic appropriate-

5 The process of acquiring cultural symbols, including language, by means of testing hypotheses, receiving constructive feedback, displaying a fundamental desire to learn, and (inter-) acting in a rich learning environment could also facilitate effective second language learning which includes the sociocultural context. However, L2 learning takes place under different circumstances than L1 acquisition, and with different functions.

46 | 2 First language acquisition and early cognitive development ness of using linguistic and communicative patterns (cf. Winkel, Petermann, and Petermann 2006: 237) so that they are by now fully interactive members of their speech community who are able to explain their opinion, talk back to others, verbalize experiences, memories and dreams, reason, and critique the actions and opinions of others. The term speech community, as introduced by Hymes (1974), foregrounds the social entity of languages users (Hymes 1974: 47), thus departing from the traditional approach of linguistics. In Hymes’ view, language has the function to create meanings in a particular context of use. This requires the subject to have acquired pragmatic skills in order to be able to recognize contextual cues which can sometimes overlay the meaning of what is actually said. Children at the age of five years have acquired these skills to a good degree, although they still have to refine them further in terms of understanding satire and irony.

2.2 The interplay of early linguistic and cognitive development As we have seen, language gradually develops in tandem with the subjective mental capacities during early socialization into the primary means of communication and social activities by means of interaction with more knowledgeable others. Hence, language acquisition (or lingualization) is an integral part of the process of socialization. Therefore, the acquisition of language is neither an innate mechanism nor a purely cognitive process but a social skill, driven by the subjective desire to communicate with others. It is incidentally acquired by interacting with others. Consequently, the analytical focus of the process of language acquisition should be neither on the syntax of language (as Chomsky would suggest), nor on the cognitive stages the child develops on the basis of biological mechanisms (as Piaget would suggest), but on social pragmatics. Messer (2000: 140) observes that “children make little or no progress with the language they hear” when the main source of language is a technological apparatus such as television which does not allow for social interaction nor facilitate the active testing of hypotheses about language because of the absence of constructive feedback. This observation was verified by Jacqueline Sachs and her colleagues (1981), who studied the linguistic development of a boy they called Jim. Jim was the hearing child of deaf parents who did not interact with him in sign language, nor obviously in verbal communication. Hence, Jim was not exposed to any interpersonal interaction, although he frequently watched television. An assessment of his linguistic abilities at three years and nine months of age showed that he was well below age standards in all aspects of language. Although he tried to express ideas typical for his age, he did not have the appropriate lexical, grammatical,

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and syntactical means to do so. Once he began a sequence of sustained interactive learning sessions with an adult, his linguistic abilities began to improve, and after five months his deficient language structures had been replaced by structures more typical of his age. The fact that Jim rapidly acquired the rules of English grammar once he began interacting with an adult demonstrates the relevance of dialogical human interaction and sociocultural embeddedness for subjective language acquisition and development. This is highlighted by the fact that Jim failed to acquire language normally when he was exposed to impersonal media such as television. Technical media do not allow for meaningful interaction, as they are onedimensional and unresponsive, and are thus not suitable for language learning – good news for the profession of L2 teachers. In addition, the creative testing, verifying, and falsifying of hypotheses in actual interaction with its implicit and explicit feedback is lacking, denying the child active engagement with linguistic features. When children are exposed to explicit or implicit language teaching through technical media, no discernible effect on vocabulary or grammatical development can be observed (cf. Saxton 2009: 69–71). In contrast to behaviorist, nativist, and cognitivist approaches to explaining the rapid and smooth process of language acquisition, the sociocultural and interactionist approaches emphasize contextual social factors, rather than internal biological mechanisms or simple stimulus-response patterns. If language acquisition can be explained by the gradual internalization of external factors, then these external factors must also assume a central role for theories of second language acquisition in many respects. This recognition gave rise to the communicative method in the 1980s. Language learning cannot be separated from the general developmental process of learning, which in turn is heavily influenced by social and cultural factors. This observation makes, of course, the whole enterprise of analyzing language acquisition much more complex, as relevant and broad extralinguistic concepts such as psychological, cultural, social, pragmatic, interactive, biological, cognitive, and affective factors have to be considered with regard to their influence on the dynamic and multi-layered language acquisition process.

2.2.1 Vygotskian accounts of early sociocultural development One of the very early and most influential proponents of the sociocultural approach is the Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky (1896–1934) who analyzed in detail the complex interplay of the processes of speaking and thinking. He studied the use of tools, both as a model for language usage and as a psychological

48 | 2 First language acquisition and early cognitive development process in itself. Vygotsky distinguishes between lower (or natural), biologically endowed mental functions, such as elementary perception, memory, attention, and volition, and the higher (or cultural), mental functions, which are specific to the human race. The higher mental functions are a product of mediated activity in which psychological tools, such as gestures, language, and other sign systems, and interpersonal communication are the prime mediators. Tools in this sense are significant for Vygotsky because he found that, when human subjects begin to use them, language and thought start to coalesce. Referring to the work of Slobin (1996), Lantolf (2005: 347) explains Vygotsky’s notion of language as a tool for processes of thought by drawing parallels between the actions that physical and symbolic tools exert on regulating our actual and mental activities. For example, a shovel is a tool that was invented to allow people to dig better and faster than using their bare hands; it compels them to make particular movements that are specific to this tool – and markedly different from movements imposed on them by other tools, e.g., hammering or sawing. Transferred to the semiotic level, the tool of language also imposes certain patterns on mental activity since inherent in each human language is a specific “subject orientation to the world of human experience, and this orientation affects the ways in which we think while we are speaking” (Slobin 1996: 91, cited in Lantolf 2005: 347; emphasis in the original). It is important to note that the activities triggered by the use of tools are being referred to here. The tool alone cannot infer its function; only through participation or observing the tool in action do we understand the function of the tool, be it a hammer, a saw, a shovel – or language. Just as physical tools compel us to move in certain ways, categories inherent in language also direct our mental activities in certain ways, and not in others, as Vygotsky (1981) points out: “By being included in the process of behavior, the psychological tool [of language] alters the entire flow and structure of mental functions. It does this by determining the structure of a new instrumental act just as a technical tool alters the process of a natural adaptation by determining the form of labour operations” (Vygotsky 1981: 137). The psychological tool of language has a mediational function, for example, organizing rational thought and gaining voluntary control over the biologically endowed mental functions. However, the linguistically mediated higher functions of the mental apparatus, while biological in origin, gain a socio-historical dimension by using language as a tool. This is a result of language having been developed socio-historically and ontogenetically from participation in socioculturally-organized activities (such as daily rituals of having breakfast, lunch, and dinner, or birthday parties) and from experiences with culturally constructed artifacts (such as ordinary objects like cars, water taps, or ovens). Although language also provides us with metalinguistic categories, allowing us to critically reflect upon linguistic relativity, and thus modify

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the dependence on linguistically mediated mental activities, this only takes place in exceptional circumstances of reflective practice. Just like the material tool of a hammer or a saw, language cannot be understood simply by analyzing its structure. Rather, it is its use that uncovers its function. Lantolf and Thorne (2006: 69) point out: “For the individual, mediational means [of language] are at first mere objects. However, through repeated use and – particularly in the case of children – under the regulatory agency of others in social practice, the objects are organized into conceptual categories, or types.” These conceptual categories, then, contribute to structuring voluntary thought and agency. Although the comparison of language as a metaphorical tool with concrete tools is useful to highlight the impact language has on our thinking and behaving, there are, however, some important differences between the impact of concrete tools on our actions, and of language as a tool with structuring effects on our thinking. Language as a social and semiotic tool is much more powerful than any physical tool, such as a hammer or a saw, in that it is capable of being reflexive. It constructs “reality,” structures and organizes communicable human experience, and defies time. Unlike material tools, language as a social product also requires the participation of conscious others and it is characterized by an element of ambiguity, as there cannot be a simple one-to-one transmission of thoughts, ideas, or experiences from one person to another; the other person will always add or take away some of the meaning that I intended to convey to him or her. Vygotsky suggests a unity of learning and development. He suggests that social interaction is foundational in cognitive development and hence rejects the notion of biologically predetermined stages of mental development, as analyzed by Piaget (cf. Inhelder and Piaget 1958; Inhelder and Piaget 1964). Vygotsky places great emphasis on the early acquisition of language by children, as language is the tool of the most effective transformation of the subjective mental functions by a social instrument. Thus, Vygotsky focuses on process rather than on product, in that he tries to reveal the dynamic relations at work in the development of higher mental functions which are mediated by culturally constructed semiotic artifacts, primarily language and sociocultural practices. Language is by no means the only sign system informing this process of transformation from the social to the subjective plane of the child (cf. Section 2.1 for pre-linguistic sounds and pointing) but it is the most consequential, since the two areas of speaking and thinking overlap in verbal thought, and this is coincident with language. Since the first language has such a normative impact on ways of thinking, it must serve as cornerstone for theories and practices of second language acquisition.

50 | 2 First language acquisition and early cognitive development 2.2.2 Egocentric speech The fundamental transformative impact of language on subjective thought was analyzed in detail by Vygotsky. He suggests that initially language and thought exist independent of one another and that they have separate origins. During the pre-linguistic phase of the child’s development, thoughts are primarily based on images, sounds, colors, and smell, whereas linguistic noises produced by the child are pre-intellectual, and thus not linked to influencing thought. Vygotsky suggests a principal distinction between lower mental functions, such as elementary perception, memory, attention, and will, and higher cultural functions, such as language use, abstract thought, and conscious interpersonal relations, which are specifically human. The development of higher functions has a structuring and organizing influence on the lower functions, which do not disappear but rather are superseded by the cultural functions. Only at approximately the age of two years do children start to use language as a tool for thinking, and their speech increasingly relates to their thoughts. Hence, language and thought become progressively interdependent, and develop together under reciprocal influence: “The relation between thought and word is a living process; thought is born through words. A word devoid of thought is a dead thing. (. . . ) But a thought that fails to realize itself in words also remains a ‘Stygian shadow’” (Vygotsky 1986: 255). Vague, unmediated infant thought precedes the acquisition of the first words of a language. The transition from unconscious thought to the first words is characterized by the formation of “complexes” in the mind of the child: “The principal function of complexes is to establish bonds and relations. Complex thinking begins the unification of scattered impressions; by organizing discrete elements of experience into groups, it creates a basis for later generalizations” (Vygotsky 1986: 135).⁶ The development of complexes leads to the understanding and production of first words, and these are the words of others. Gradually these words, but also the grammar and syntax, as used by significant others, begin to exert a structuring and generating influence on thought, in that language increasingly becomes a tool for thinking to an extent that it allows for abstract thought, based solely on concepts mediated by language.⁷ For instance, we can think about abstract con-

6 Vygotsky suggests that there are five stages of complex-formation; the most advanced type of complexes are “pseudoconcepts” which are situated on the borderline between the more basic form of thinking that is complexes, and proper concepts (cf. Vygotsky 1986: 113–119). 7 However, Vygotsky (1986: 140) stresses that the development of complexes into concepts is not a smooth and mechanistic one in which “the higher developmental stage completely supersedes the lower one.” He compares the development of an individual’s thinking with geological formations of the earth in which older and newer formations coexist: “Even after the adolescent has

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cepts such as love or intelligence in very precise terms, even differentiating many apparently distinct forms of love or intelligence. For Vygotsky, this complex relationship between language and thought is the focus of his investigations. His basic hypothesis is this: “If perceptive consciousness and intellectual consciousness reflect reality differently, then we have two different forms of consciousness. Thought and speech turn out to be the key to the nature of human consciousness” (Vygotsky 1986: 256; emphasis in the original). Thought and language reflect “reality” in a way that differs from perception; one could also say that thought and language construct a subjective “reality” for each individual which he or she takes for objective reality, which in turn is checked for validity in a myriad of intersubjective communicative acts on both subjective and collective levels within a speech community. In this process, the subject’s constructs of “reality” for a given situation are influenced by internalized concepts, and thus his or her construals of “reality” are not completely subjective, but the social tool of language ensures that they are basically compatible and accessible to members of the same speech community. This means that language plays a central part, not only in the subjective development of thought, but also in the collective growth of human consciousness as a whole: “If language is as old as consciousness itself, and if language is a practical consciousness-forothers and, consequently, consciousness-for-myself, then not only one particular thought but all consciousness is connected with the development of the word” (Vygotsky 1986: 256). The process of increasing interdependence of language and thought marks the beginning of higher stages of development for the child; these become evident in the development of egocentric speech at about the age of two or three years. In contrast to Piaget (1959: 43, cited in Vygotsky 1986: 16) who suggests that egocentric speech is the earliest form of speech, originating from deep within the psychic structure of the child, Vygotsky proposes that “egocentric speech is a phenomenon of the transition from interpsychic to intrapsychic functioning, i.e., from the social, collective activity of the child to his more individualized activity” (Vygotsky 1986: 228). According to this view, the occurrence of egocentric speech marks the transition from external to inner speech, or verbal thought. The psychological function of speech does not arise suddenly from social speech, but passes through an egocentric phase characterized by the social appearance of this speech, though its function is increasingly psychological. Thus, the formation of

learned to produce concepts, he does not abandon the more elementary forms; they continue for a long time to operate, indeed to dominate, in many areas of thinking; (. . . ) even adults often resort to complex thinking” (Vygotsky 1986: 140).

52 | 2 First language acquisition and early cognitive development egocentric speech is not the result of autonomous innate cognitive mechanisms, as Piaget hypothesized, but it is initiated in the direct social environment of the child before being internalized and used for intrapersonal communication and self-guidance. The process of internalization or appropriation of language for the self initiates a fundamental transformation of the child’s cognitive processes in terms of fusing pre-intellectual language and pre-linguistic cognition which gives rise to verbally mediated thought. However, Vygotsky’s concepts of egocentric speech, inner speech, and internalization has been criticized for promoting a segregationist agenda in linguistics in which “language is conceived and studied as a self-contained system whose constituent units have an autonomous existence above and beyond the actual concrete practices of communication in real life and, therefore, of the actual individuals who are responsible for these practices” (Jones 2009: 168). Critiques like these have a point in making us aware that Vygotsky, who was not a linguist, could have defined his vision of language and linguistics in much more detail. However, they tend to overlook that fact that Vygotsky’s main interest was psychological. Furthermore, the allegation that Vygotsky’s view of linguistics is segregationist tends to overlook his emphatic observation that language, as experienced by the child, comes from other peoples’ mouths, with all its imperfections, in particular during the early stages (e.g., motherese or parentese; cf. Section 2.1). This view of linguistics is not segregationist in the sense of a strict opposition of the language as a system and language as use; Vygotsky perceived language as a tool for communication and thought, not as an abstract system. In a similar manner, Vygotsky’s concept of internalization has been criticized as a “rigid transmission model of linguistic and cultural development” (Jones 2009: 168). This critique seems to operate with “rigid” oppositions between external and internal spheres of the human mind. Drawing on Stetsenko (1999), Lantolf (2005: 314) points out that internalization does not literally mean “within the individual” or “in the brain.” Rather, the term should be taken as a metaphor for subjective mental activity which is psychologically independent of the thoughts and understandings of others, although remaining, of course, socioculturally organized in a historical dimension. Lantolf and Thorne (2006) cite Valsiner (1997) to define the process of internalization as a complex phenomenon which is situated on the borderline of the subject and the collective: “Internalization is a negotiated process of development that is co-constructed through forward-oriented construction of signs that bring over from the extrapersonal (social) world of the person to the intrapersonal subjective world semiotically encoded experiences, which, as personal sense systems, guide the person’s process of further reorganization of person-environment relationships” (Valsiner 1997: 246, cited in Lantolf and Thorne 2006: 160). The process of internalization does not happen in

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an instant but it is a long process of negotiation and re-negotiation in which socioculturally shaped and linguistically mediated concepts and plausibility structures are tested for viability and, if deemed viable, appropriated and internalized. Hence, the process of internalization presumes the incorporation of the subject into the activities of communities of practice,⁸ beginning at the periphery of the activity, moving through a series of actual and possible roles, thus becoming a full participant of the respective community. Therefore, language and cognition are not completely internal functions but are situated on the borderline between internal and external realities, enabling the subject to abstract mentally from the immediate environment. The function of egocentric speech can be seen as structuring, regulating, and representing the child’s early thoughts to his or her self. Its form is largely identical to the social language the child experiences and acquires. Thus, egocentric speech has its origins in the social speech of a language community in general. For the cognition of the child, it originates in directly experienced social speech of others and is acquired during the process of appropriating, and thus transforming, social forms of action to his or her subjective cognitive and emotional needs (which are also socially and culturally influenced). The child speaks to his or her self through commenting on ongoing activities or verbalizing thoughts and ideas; language has in this context the function of monitoring and, to a lesser extent, structuring the process of thinking. In doing so, children do actually use the social language they have internalized, and not a language of their own invention: “The child does not choose the meaning of his words. (. . . ) The meaning of the words is given to him by his conversations with adults. (. . . ) In a word, he does not create his own speech, but acquires the speech of others” (Vygotsky 1986: 122), which has a transformative influence on his mental functions. However, children do not master social speech used by adults in a completely identical fashion because they have not yet acquired the same modes of thought and conceptualization. Children are neither aware of the rules and regulations inherent in the system of language nor of the concepts adults associate with certain words and expressions; hence, they operate with pseudoconcepts. These are sim-

8 The term “community of practice” (introduced by Lave and Wenger 1991) can be defined as “an aggregate of people who come together around mutual engagement in an endeavour. Ways of doing things, ways of talking, beliefs, values, power relations – in short, practices – emerge in the course of this mutual endeavour. As a social construct, a community of practice is different from the traditional community, primarily because it is defined simultaneously by its membership and by the practice in which that membership engages” (Eckert and McConnell-Ginet 1992: 464). This dynamic and complex understanding of group practices has been influential in transcending essentializing constructs of communities.

54 | 2 First language acquisition and early cognitive development ilar to the concepts used by adults but they are just “‘shadow[s]’ of the concept, its contour” (Vygotsky 1986: 122) which resemble more the structure of complexes. In using these pseudoconcepts, the child operates with them in an instrumental fashion but is not aware of their meaning. For instance, when I caught my threeyear old son taking sweets from the refrigerator without having asked for permission, I explained to him why this was wrong. He listened carefully, put the sweets back into the fridge, looked at me and replied by saying: “I rest my case.” Clearly, he had heard this phrase somewhere and vaguely knew that it could be used to end a part of conversation, but had not fully understood its meaning and could not use it in a manner appropriate to the situation. In the development of children’s thinking from unconscious to linguistically mediated and conceptually structured thought, pseudoconcepts have an important function because they provide the bridge to introducing the child’s thought to the concepts of others. “The transition from thinking in complexes to thinking in concepts passes unnoticed by the child because his pseudoconcepts already coincide in content with adult concepts” (Vygotsky 1986: 123–24). This means that the child uses the adult concepts without understanding their meaning. While the child operates in thought and speech with meanings derived from the words and concepts of others, he or she tries to fill the words and (pseudo-)concepts with sense, and to appropriate concepts and internal speech for self-directed thought. Egocentric speech allows children to distance themselves from their immediate environment and stimuli and have their behavior and attention guided by their own verbal plans; this procedure can be frequently observed “in preschool and early elementary years as an overt step in the eventual formation of inner speech” (Winsler 2009: 4).

2.2.3 Inner speech Since the elaborate use of external social language is too complex for spontaneous subjective mental functions and thus ineffective for the purpose of immediately regulating mental operations of the child, egocentric speech is gradually superseded, roughly at the age of seven (cf. Vygotsky 1986: 33), by a more effective form of inner linguistic representation, namely inner speech (although egocentric speech and thinking in complexes do not completely vanish; cf. Section 2.2.2). The child has now reached a stage in his or her mental development that allows him or her to increasingly move from reliance on others’ speech to reliance on his or her appropriated form of inner speech. In contrast to egocentric speech, inner speech is inaudible. It originates from linguistic exchanges with others and passes

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through an intermediate phase of self-directed speech before becoming fully internalized. Inner speech, according to Vygotsky, is neither identical with subjective thought nor with social language. Rather, it consists of a very personal language with minimal, abbreviated syntax and phonetics which operates in an automated manner in the mind of the subject. It focuses wholly on sense which is decontextualized, highly abstract, and only meaningful to the subject: The sense of a word (. . . ) is the sum of all the psychological events aroused in our consciousness by the word. It is a dynamic, fluid, complex whole, which has several zones of unequal stability. Meaning is only one of the zones of sense, the more stable and precise zone. A word acquires its sense from the context in which it appears; in different contexts, it changes its sense. (Vygotsky 1986: 244–45)

In making meaning for the individual, “the senses of different words flow into one another – literally ‘influence’ one another – so that the earlier ones are contained in, and modify, the later ones” (Vygotsky 1986: 246–47). Hence, the senses of words in inner speech – mainly verbs (Vygotsky 1986: 248) – are fused with one another (Vygotsky [1986: 246] calls this process “agglutination”), with the principal function of providing a point of reference for the subject, evoking other associations, other senses, that can quickly be identified by the speaker and provide a guide for his or her actual verbal utterances. The meanings of words become interconnected, fused senses of chunks of words and expressions that are comprehensible only to the subject. “A single word is so saturated with sense that (. . . ) it becomes a concentrate of sense. To unfold it into overt speech, one would need a multitude of words” (Vygotsky 1986: 247). The sense generated by inner speech thus underlies in concentrated form the actual verbal utterances which tend to be much more elaborate and adherent to the systemic use of social language. Inner speech cannot be translated fully into external speech, since aspects of sense remain unique to the subject due to his or her former experiences, social environment, motivations, memories, objectives of speaking, and degree of access to elaborated linguistic codes. “Inner sense turns out to be incommensurable with the external meaning of the same word” (Vygotsky 1986: 248). In contrast to sense, meaning is, according to Vygotsky, a much narrower concept: “Meaning remains stable throughout the changes of sense. The dictionary meaning of a word is no more than a stone in the edifice of sense” (Vygotsky 1986: 245). Inner speech, then, is characterized by the predominance of subjectively induced sense over socially defined meaning. This implies that inner (subjective) and outer (socially comprehensible) speech is not identical; they are different and they develop differently. Whereas inner speech is highly abstract, minimalist, and subvocally verbalized in a very subjective dimension, outer speech must adhere to the rules and regu-

56 | 2 First language acquisition and early cognitive development lations of the language, that is, its grammar, syntax, lexis, phonology, semantics, pragmatics, and morphology. But external language provides the basis for inner speech, too, as it must have been internalized before it can be used for that inner function. Vygotsky suggests that the linguistic structures acquired by the child through the internalization of social language into inner speech subsequently become “the basic structures of thinking” (Vygotsky 1986: 94). Vygotsky’s concept of inner speech has been criticized from an integrationist approach to linguistics (cf. Harris 1996). If inner speech is an abbreviated form of social speech, it can be described as deficient, compared to the intersubjective use of speech. However, what is efficient use of language? Does it always operate with complete and linguistically correct units? Certainly not, as everyday speech is frequently deficient, yet highly efficient in its communicative purposes, and it is often supported by extra- and paralinguistic forms of communication; every text or utterance, no matter how abbreviated, makes sense, even if it is nonsensical. Therefore, the notion of abbreviated inner speech may be misconceived, as it tacitly presumes the necessity of using linguistically complete expressions, phrases, sentences, and texts (or utterances). Opponents of Vygotsky’s approach even state “that there is no such thing as ‘social speech’ or ‘private speech’ in the Vygotskian sense” (Jones 2009: 175). However, critiques like these tend to overlook the psychological context in which Vygotsky has developed these concepts, that is, the correlation between the development of language and mental faculties of thought. Over the past thirty years, a huge amount of research in developmental psychology has confirmed the existence of egocentric, private, and inner speech (for a comprehensive overview, cf. Winsler, Fernyhough, and Montero 2009). As analyzed in Chapter 2, the child is by no means a passive pawn in the adult’s game, but has agency from the moment of birth (and even before). The child makes moves to regulate others’ behavior even before he or she has developed egocentric speech (e.g., making grasping movements with the hand while looking at an object; cf. Section 2.1). These activities are clearly conscious and creative but not necessarily reflective. In order to gain voluntary control over otherwise chaotic and messy thought processes, the child has to operate with semiotic tools, such as images, colors, smells, and language. Language is for him or her clearly not the elaborated linguistic system which the ideal speaker in Chomsky’s sense would effortlessly use; it is a form of language appropriated by him or her from what he or she hears from others, i.e. egocentric speech and inner speech. Language, as experienced by the child, contains a lot of deficient inputs which parents deliberately use to adapt to the children’s presumed deficient linguistic competences (e.g., parentese). The child does not internalize these utterances in an identical manner but crafts them anew and adopts them into his or her ongoing processes of thinking and (inter-)acting. From the age of 2 years, children

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actively test their linguistic constructs and creations and receive feedback from more knowledgeable others, thus continuing to construct the forms and rules of their L1. Lantolf and Thorne (2006: 75) suggest that there is a third form of speech, namely “private speech” which “refers to that form of externalized speech deployed by adults to regulate their own mental (and possibly physical) activity.” Whereas inner speech is characterized by the predominance of pure sense and the absence of formal properties, private speech may be subvocal, or whispered; it is clearly based on linguistic structure and can therefore easily become externalized. The notion of private speech, which comes close to the notion of inner speech encoded in linguistic form, is observable mainly in adults rather than in children, and its main purpose is to maintain the individual’s focus on a particular reflective (or other) activity. This form of private speech seems to be closely related to egocentric speech (cf. Section 2.2.2) of children with the difference that adults use a more elaborate form of language for that purpose. Research undertaken in this field seems to suggest that private speech does not disappear when inner speech develops but it is regularly used by adults to regulate their own behavior (cf. Medina et al. 2009). Private speech also plays an interesting role in self-regulation of bilingual or multilingual children and in early L2 acquisition. Studies carried out in this field of research seem to be consistent in showing that there is very little, if any, code-switching between L1 and L2 in bilingual children (Diaz et al. 1991; PeaseAlvarez and Winsler 1994; Glaessner 1995; Dolitsky 2000). It would appear that bilingual children tend to pick one language for thought processes and private speech, and then basically stick with this choice (cf. Winsler 2009: 22), although this may vary according to the linguistic and cultural context in which activities are performed.⁹ The second language is typically learned with intense scaffolding from the L1, not only by monolingual learners, but also by the majority of bilingual learners (cf. Diaz et al. 1991; Ushakowa 1994). However, when certain tasks require a varied and rich use of the L2 (e.g. narrating picture stories, solving problems, or recalling stories), considerable self-regulatory L2 private speech was observed (in addition to L1 private speech) among early L2 learners (cf. Appel and Lantolf 1994; Ahmed 1994; Centeno-Cortés and Jiménez-Jiménez 2004; Lantolf and Thorne 2006). Centeno-Cortés and Jiménez-Jiménez 2004 conducted

9 However, fully fluent bilingual individuals can effortlessly switch between languages, although they tend to use their preferred language to mentally represent exact numbers (cf. Carruthers 2002). Bilingual subjects report feeling and acting differently when they are in different linguistic mindsets and are in a position to switch strategically between these mindsets according to the requirements of language-dependent contexts (cf. Schrauf 2002).

58 | 2 First language acquisition and early cognitive development a study comparing the use of overt private speech by intermediate-level learners of Spanish to both advanced L2 Spanish learners and native L1 speakers of Spanish while they were engaged in trying to solve logic and math word problems. They found out that, while L1 speakers unsurprisingly used almost exclusively the L1 for their private speech, 35% of intermediate learners used the L2 (Spanish) for engaging with the task at hand, followed by 52% of advanced L2 learners. This suggests that the duration and intensity of L2 learning has an impact on the use of the L2 as the medium of private speech (in the sense of self-directed talk). The longer one learns the L2, and the more proficient one becomes in using the L2 appropriately in its communicative and cultural context, the more likely it seems that the L2 is used for mediating one’s continued learning of the language.¹⁰ These observations might be transferred to the role of the L2 in inner speech, although there has not yet been any conclusive research carried out in this area. In the process of acquiring an ever-increasing amount of words and rules of the L1, the child progressively develops in parallel mental functions. Having already started to develop in the pre-linguistic developmental stage from unorganized heaps to complexes, and then to concepts which Vygotsky observed on the basis of block-sorting and classification tasks with young children (cf. Vygotsky 1986: 110–124), conscious use of language as a tool for mental operations brings the ability to think to a completely different level. This observation refers mainly to the conceptual level of language, as Wertsch exemplifies: With the development of scientific concepts, a child not only can use words such as “table”, “chair” and “furniture” appropriately in connection with the objects to which they refer, but the child can also operate on statements of logical equivalence, nonequivalence, entailment, and the like, such as “All tables are furniture.” Hence the emphasis has shifted away from those aspects of linguistic organization that involve contextualization to the capacity of linguistic signs to enter into decontextualized relationships, that is, relationships which are constant across contexts of use. (Wertsch 1985: 103)

Vygotsky considers the ability to use words as semiotic symbols for phenomena that are not present in the immediate interaction a crucial condition for the development of higher stages of mental development:

10 However, Centeno-Cortés and Jiménz-Jiménez (2004) also found that even the advanced learners gave up on the problem or produced an incorrect solution when they sustained their private speech in the L2. For successfully solving the problem, learners reverted back to their L1. This could be explained with Vygotsky’s observation that private speech focuses on meaning and does not function operationally (cf. Lantolf and Thorne 2006: 94). Another explanation could be the use of extra cognitive resources during problem solving which sidelines the L2 (compared to the L1) in private speech (cf. Winsler 2009: 23).

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[One has to] view concept formation as a function in the adolescent’s total social and cultural growth, which affects not only the contents but also the methods of his thinking. The new significance of the word, its use as a means of concept formation is the immediate psychological cause of the radical change in the intellectual process that occurs on the threshold of adolescence. (Vygotsky 1986: 108; emphasis in the original)

Inner speech cannot take place without previous internalization of socioculturally produced language and concepts. At the same time, it contributes to the further development of concepts and plausibility structures on both subjective and collective planes. Inner speech, therefore, has a special status in the workings of the human mind. It regulates and guides unconscious processes of construction, and provides the space for conscious reflection. In both instances, private speech has to be taken into account for second language teaching and learning. If the learning process in its advanced stages is to be successful, the learner will develop a form of private and inner speech that integrates elements of the second language and its plausibility structures with the hitherto dominant L1 constructs. Therefore, in parallel to the development of the intercultural third place (cf. Sections 8.2 & 9.5), it can be assumed that the learner will also develop an interlingual form of private speech, based on the subjective interplay, or blending, of L1 and L2 linguistic, conceptual, and cultural elements. This, however, does not imply that the learner develops a completely new form of language; he or she rather is able to switch between languages according to context and, to some extent, blends and fuses underlying concepts and patterns.

2.3 Development of everyday concepts and scientific concepts The decontextualization of meaning from the referent is a precondition for the subjective development of what Vygotsky calls scientific concepts, mainly mediated through language in formalized contexts, for instance, highly structured and specialized classroom activities in school. Vygotsky differentiates between scientific and everyday (or spontaneous) concepts. Whereas the former are usually learned in a formal school setting, the latter emerge on the basis of children’s experience of (inter-)acting in everyday real life. However, if the term concept relates to abstracted and subsequently synthesized features, scientific concepts must precede the formation of everyday concepts. This apparent contradiction in the sequence of the development of concepts can be explained by Vygotsky’s notion of pseudoconcepts: as long as the child has not yet reached the ability to think in a systematic, organized, conscious, and hierarchical manner, proper concepts cannot be formed, even though the child clearly and consciously experiences his or her everyday environment: “The child becomes conscious of his

60 | 2 First language acquisition and early cognitive development spontaneous concepts relatively late; the ability to define them in words, to operate with them at will, appears long after he has acquired the concepts. (. . . ) The development of a scientific concept, on the other hand, usually begins with its verbal definition and its use in nonspontaneous operations” (Vygotsky 1986: 192; emphasis in the original). The child tries to make sense of his or her environment on the basis of acquired linguistic and sociocultural knowledge. However, this kind of sense is construed with pre-abstract categories, or pseudoconcepts, and is not, therefore, compatible with sense derived from proper concepts. Hence, everyday concepts are closely linked to particular contexts, and lack an overall system. Once everyday concepts have been developed by the child, they enrich existing scientific concepts which, in turn, have a structuring influence on everyday concepts: Scientific concepts are formed on the basis of systematic, organized and hierarchical thinking as distinct from everyday concepts which were seen to be tightly linked to particular contexts and lacking in an overall system. The latter are seen to bring the embedded richness and detailed patterns of signification of everyday thinking into the system and organized structure of scientific concepts. (Daniels 1996: 11)

Vygotsky argues that one of the fundamental advantages of scientific concepts (as opposed to everyday concepts) is that they form part of a system of interconnected concepts that allows the subject to link up with existing knowledge and to draw conclusions based on this system of decontextualized links. Consequently, Vygotsky (1986: 193; emphasis in the original) observes that “the development of the child’s spontaneous concepts proceeds upward, and the development of his scientific concepts downward, to a more elementary and concrete level.” Whereas spontaneous everyday concepts have the tendency to work their way toward a greater abstractedness, scientific concepts develop toward greater consciousness. Valsiner and van der Veer (2000: 376) illustrate the mutual enrichment of scientific (or academic) and everyday concepts with the example of the concept farmer, which may evoke romantic meanings in the child but more capitalist connotations in the adult: The everyday concept of farmer is enriched because the child now learns the nonapparent fact that farmers form part of an economic market in which they try to realize certain goals. The academic concept of farmer is enriched because the abstract notion of entrepreneurs dealing with cattle and crop is filled with concrete facts of daily farmer life; it gets body and flesh. Thus, academic concepts presuppose everyday concepts, build upon them, but once acquired they alter the everyday concepts in fundamental ways. (Valsiner and van der Veer 2000: 376)

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Scientific concepts are the gateway through which consciousness enters the realm of childish concepts, or pseudoconcepts. In other words, scientific concepts are a necessary precondition for the transformation of pseudoconcepts into proper everyday concepts which structure adult thought.

2.4 Learning the written form of language If concepts are based on linguistic categories, then concepts must be systematic, communicable, and sharable. The concepts internalized by individuals within the same speech community have to be essentially the same, or at least compatible, in order to facilitate meaningful communication; individuals can also pool their conceptual resources so as to construct and co-construct meanings in order to solve certain problems. This is sometimes done explicitly and intentionally, but for the most part subjects are unaware of the concepts they are using in interaction; thus, conceptual knowledge is usually tacit knowledge, distributed to all members of a speech community. For example, in perceiving a certain situation, we attribute meaning to this situation as a result of the conceptual patterns of knowledge and experiences that we have acquired and internalized: “Perceptual recognition is subject to ‘semantic priming’ whereby previous exposure to a stimulus related in meaning enhances perceptual performance on various tasks” (Harré and Gillet 1994: 169). On that basis, knowledge of self, Other, and world can be co-constructed between individuals, and successful strategies for coping with situations can be developed (cf. Harré and Gillet 1994: 43). This is the core of the symbolic order that constitutes culture (cf. Chapter 7). Vygotsky’s associate Luria carried out field research of literate and illiterate subjects in Uzbekistan in Central Asia during the 1930s and 1940s with the objective of examining the impact of scientific concepts on the ability to understand selfhood and worldhood in decontextualized structures of knowledge. For example, subjects were given pictures of a hammer, a saw, a log, and a hatchet and asked to group them together. Whereas schooled, literate Uzbeks tended to do so on the basis of abstract word meanings (hammer, saw, and hatchet are hyponyms of tools), non-schooled peasants did not make these connections at all; rather, they based their reasoning on experiential and situational thinking, for instance by stating that, “They [hammer, saw, log and hatchet] are all alike. The saw will saw the log and the hatchet will chop it into small pieces. If one of these things has to go, I’d throw out the hatchet. It doesn’t do as good a job as a saw” (Luria 1976: 60–61).

62 | 2 First language acquisition and early cognitive development Michael Cole and Sylvia Scribner (1974) conducted similar experiments with illiterate members of the ethnic group of Kpelle in Liberia (West Africa). Kpelle adults were given simple syllogisms, such as the following: Experimenter: At one time spider went to a feast. He was told to answer this question before he could eat any of the food. The question is: Spider and black deer always eat together. Spider is eating. Is black deer eating? Subject: Were they in the bush? Experimenter: Yes. Subject: Were they eating together? Experimenter: Spider and black deer always eat together. Spider is eating. Is black deer eating? Subject: But I was not there. How can I answer such a question?’ (Cole and Scribner 1974: 162; emphasis in the original)

Just like the illiterate subjects in Uzbekistan, the Kpelle could not solve simple syllogisms by forming analogues since this requires a level of abstraction they obviously had not acquired; instead, they referred to conventional situations they had themselves experienced. The illiterate subjects invoked practical, nonlinguistically represented experiences in their reasoning when confronted with decontextualized problems. They were not in a position to grasp the gist and meaning of the decontextualized narrative, and the researchers were surprised by the way the illiterate Kpelle subjects invoked empirical and situational frames of contextualization. By contrast, literate Kpelle demonstrated an ability to effortlessly operate with abstract, linguistically invoked objects and a linguistically created reality (cf. Cole and Scribner 1974: 164). Thus, “The arbitrariness of the hypothetical problem defeats them, whilst Kpelle boys even with limited schooling are able to cope with it” (Jahoda 1976: 183). However, Scribner and Cole (1981) could show with their experiments among the Kpelle and Vai people of Liberia that the differences between schooling and literacy are not the same as Luria (and Vygotsky) had assumed. Schooling has a much bigger impact than literacy on the successful execution of the task because schooling also influences the ways, manners, and methodologies applied for solving the syllogisms. Hence, the ability to read and write is in itself not as decisive as the manner in which it is used. Schooled children were able to provide verbal explanations to solve the syllogisms, whereas the non-schooled interviewees relied on empirical reasoning, frequently adding further aspects which the original problem did not contain. But the biggest push in the direction of acquiring the potential for abstract thought is also not inherent in schooling itself, as Scribner and Cole (1981) concluded; rather, it is mediated by the written form of language. In this form, the instrument of language as such is objectified, and thus potentially deinstrumentalized. These anthropological field experiments graphically illustrate

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that empirically-structured illiterate thinking does not know analytical thought; it does not recognize any truth outside its own terms (cf. Demele 1988: 116). By contrast, schooled Kpelle literates were able to use decontextualized categories and assertions quite effortlessly. The empirical field studies carried out by Luria in Uzbekistan and by Scribner and Cole in Liberia have their flaws. For example, they do not stipulate whether and for how long subjects kept in touch with school-related occupational activities requiring abstract thought, nor do they mention whether the subjects continued to sustain their improved task performance in everyday life. However, both studies seem to support Vygotsky’s general argument that transformation in material circumstances has an effect on mental function. When children begin to learn to write in school, they have already acquired a vast amount of orally represented lexical and grammatical knowledge of their L1, typically by means of incidental learning. However, they are not usually aware of this knowledge and normally have no reason to make it explicit: “The child does have a command of the grammar of his native tongue long before he enters school, but it is unconscious, acquired in a purely structural way, like the phonetic composition of words” (Vygotsky 1986: 184). Therefore, written words are only objects to small children. Although children may feel that they represent something, they do not know how this mechanism of representation works. In an experiment conducted by Bruce Homer in Canada in the late 1990s (cf. Olson 2002: 158), it transpired that, when preliterate four-year olds were asked to pretend to write the word cat, they produced just one scribbled mark insisting it said cat. The children obviously tried to reproduce what they had seen their parents or other more knowledgeable others do when they were writing.¹¹ When asked to write two cats, one child produced two scribbled marks on the paper, and three scribbles for three cats. However, when asked to write no cats the child waved the pencil in the air, saying: “There’s no cats so I didn’t write anything” (Olson 2002: 159). Obviously, the child hypothesizes that a word is something to be read and that it stands for something tangible, so abstract ideas, such as no cats, cannot be written down in words. Homer and Olson conclude that “the child knows something about writing – hence the scribbles – but does not know that writing maps on to utterances, not on to events or objects. (. . . ) They do not realize that writing represents not events, but language about events” (Olson 2002: 159–160). Preliterate children do

11 By orientating themselves at more knowledgeable others, like their parents or older siblings, children also orientate their form of “writing” at them so that the immediately experienced forms of cultural behavior are not only a context for their writing but it is embedded in the written forms and practices they are copying at this stage, and explicitly learn at the next stage.

64 | 2 First language acquisition and early cognitive development not know about lexical or phonological properties of language, therefore they lack the capacity to analyze the constituents of written words which is a precondition for developing the ability to read and write. In learning to write and in explicitly learning the grammar of the mother tongue, the child reaches a stage in the development of his or her language that is characterized by the conscious use of language. This is a major step in language acquisition, as the child is no longer limited to the unconscious and unreflected usage of language (tacit linguistic knowledge), but can now deliberately operate with language, and consequently operate consciously with his or her own cognitive abilities (cf. Vygotsky 1986: 183–184). Whereas language usage in the ordinary world is characterized by spontaneity and context-specific restrictions, schooling puts emphasis on theoretical knowledge, and decontextualized and taxonomic thinking. In learning how to read and in particular how to write words, phrases, and texts, children have to learn to reconstitute their meaning in a new, abstract mode. “In learning to write, the child must disengage himself from the sensory aspect of speech and replace words by images of words” (Vygotksy 1986: 181). Unlike in face-to-face conversation, where responsibility for mutual understanding is shared between the interlocutors, the solitary writing process requires children to take on the sole responsibility for making accessible the meaning of what they want to express. In expressing their thoughts in a written text, children become aware that they must make their thinking fully explicit if it is to be understood by the readers. Consequently, children become aware of the linguistic system in some detail, and they come to understand that, by consciously deploying linguistic means, they can effectively meet their specific communicative intentions. According to Vygotsky, the beginning of the process of learning to write is not dependent on the developmental readiness of school children because “the child has little motivation to learn writing when we begin to teach it. He feels no need and has only a vague idea of its usefulness” (Vygotsky 1986: 181). In addition, “the psychological functions on which written speech is based have not begun to develop in the proper sense when instruction in writing starts” (Vygotsky 1986: 183). In this important stage of learning, instruction is clearly leading development, a notion that Vygotsky developed in more detail with his concept of the “zone of proximal development” (cf. Section 9.5). Individual development follows its own internal logic which makes it difficult to work out a path of instruction to follow, but as Vygotsky has shown, development can be guided by instruction. While speaking, the child “is hardly conscious of the sounds he pronounces and quite unconscious of the mental operations he performs. In writing, he must take cognizance of the sound structure of each word, dissect it, and reproduce it in alphabetical symbols, which he must have studied and memorized before” (Vygotsky 1986: 182). Although every text written in English can be decomposed into

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the 26 letters of the alphabet, children have to put the letters and words together according to complex linguistic rules and discursive requirements. An additional difficulty is the relation between elements of speech (phonemes) and their corresponding elements in written language (graphemes), for instance, due to different ways of pronunciation (e.g., varieties such as Scottish English, Hiberno English, Estuary English, Pidgin English, etc.), or words that sound the same but have different meanings (for example, homophones such as plain and plane, there and their, etc.). Using written symbols, such as full-stops, commas, and colons can also influence the meaning of a text and provide some guidance to the readers as to how the author intends his or her text to be read.¹² Learning to acquire literacy is an arduous process covering many years, starting (at least in most Western societies) with the preparation phase, when children (of about 6 years of age) learn to form letters, handle a pencil, and copy words for themselves. In the consolidation phase, children (aged about 7 years) can write independently, using only those constructions they have already used in speech. The differentiation phase marks the separation of speech patterns from writing. Children (of 9 or 10 years of age) use increasingly complex literary constructions and genres in their writing. And finally, the integration phase marks the completion of differentiating the control of speaking and writing (cf. Kroll 1981). The child can now deliberately manipulate the differences between the oral and written forms of language, and mix them for intended effect. During the initial two phases, “young children’s writing occurs at the moment. There is little preplanning or revising” (Rowe 2008: 409). It is only with gaining experience in the variation of texts and their underlying purposes in the subsequent two phases that children “begin to engage in both rehearsal and revision, with an eye toward pleasing their audience” (Rowe 2008: 409). By now, children have experienced language not only as a communicative tool for expressing their thoughts, but have learned to understand it in its objectified and systematic form. This prepares the ground for developing another form of linguistic knowledge, namely metalinguistic awareness, which occurs in the last two phases when children encounter more complex written language requiring conscious planning of the line of argument, the form of expression, and the choice of genre for the text to be written: “Written text conventions promote metalinguistic thinking in various linguistic domains such as sound/letter correspondence, word and sen-

12 In a very entertaining manner, Lynne Truss (2003) has provided many examples of how punctuation can radically change the meaning of texts. This is even evident in the title of her book Eats, shoots and leaves which, relating to the favorite food of panda bears, should read “Eats shoots and leaves.”

66 | 2 First language acquisition and early cognitive development tence boundaries, and appropriate grammatical constructions (e.g., past perfect in English, passé simple in French, or optional bound morphology in Hebrew)” (Ravid and Tolchinsky 2002: 430). In reaching the stage of metalinguistic awareness, the young learner has now acquired all aspects of language relevant for use in adult life. Language in its written form fosters elaborated decontextualized reflection, for instance, of philosophical concepts of truth or nothingness, and it allows access to archives of texts for the formation of disciplined knowledge. The individual is now a fully competent member of the speech community. For the purposes of L2 acquisition, the achievement of metalinguistic L1 awareness through mastering the written form of language has two sides. On the one side, is eases subjective access to the L2 because it can be approached as a linguistic system in terms of grammar, morphology, syntax, phonology, etc. which is different from the L1. However, the L1 system will, at least in the initial and intermediate stages of L2 learning, provide the basic framework for the subjective metalinguistic approach to the other language. This will lead to interferences at all linguistic levels which can be very difficult to overcome in the long term when using the L2.

3 Formation of concepts and plausibility structures The first language plays a fundamental role in structuring processes of voluntary thought and patterns of intersubjective communication. Derived from significant other people (e.g., parents, siblings, playmates) during the first months and years of life, the categories, norms, concepts, and the grammar and syntax of the first language turn the child into a social being who can actively participate in the speech community. Having analyzed the mechanisms of first language acquisition in the preceding chapter, we now turn our attention to the development of conceptual knowledge and plausibility structures, as mediated by language. Like the first language, they have been culturally generated and are extremely influential for the individual’s cognition and emotion, as well as for his or her notion of subjectivity. Typically, they have been internalized to such an extent that they subconsciously guide activities of interpretation, construction, and interaction. Due to the interactive development of language, culture, and mind from a very early and impressionable age, they exert a shaping influence on the individual in terms of habits of thought and feeling, traits of temperament, behavior, inhibitions, prejudices, beliefs, and taboos. Furthermore, young children “build up a body of sentiments and memories, acquire love of certain kinds of sounds, smells and sights, heroes, role models, bodily gestures, values, ideals, and ways of carrying and holding themselves. Since all these are often acquired unconsciously and in the course of living within a more or less integrated way of life, they strike deep roots and become an inseparable part of their personality” (Parekh 2006: 155–156). Therefore, they cannot be ignored when a second language is to be effectively taught and learned in instructed learning contexts. Conceptual development is an integral part of linguistic and mental development. The notion of concept on a very general level can be understood to refer to an individual’s idea of what something in the world is like, including abstract features such as love, justice, or the activity to contemplate. Concepts provide ways of grasping aspects of the sociocultural world in a speech community. The term concept is necessarily vague, but remains still useful, “because it allows us to talk about the expression of thoughts without specifying which kind of device is being used at any moment” (Harré and Gillett 1994: 39). Individuals think mainly in concepts; some of them are lexicalized, such as bird, hate, love, or furniture; others are denoted by colors, shapes, smells, etc. that trigger particular memories and emotions, such as feeling blue. Concepts can relate to single entities, such as a concept someone has of his or her father, or they can relate to a whole set of entities, such as the concept vegetable. This latter type of concept has a strong structuring influ-

68 | 3 Formation of concepts and plausibility structures ence on the mind, in that it includes certain objects such as lettuce, peas, carrots, broccoli, etc., and at the same time excludes others, such as oranges and apples. Concepts structure our world into relevant units of categories. These categories underlie much of our vocabulary and our reasoning. Whenever we perceive something, we have the tendency to categorize it. For example, when we read a text, we automatically categorize it as fictional, philosophical, factual, and as a recipe, timetable, examination paper, etc. Hence the world, as we perceive and construct it, is not some kind of objective reality existing in and for itself but is, for us human beings, always shaped by our own categorizing activities, i.e., our – subjective and collective – perception, volition, knowledge, attitudes, memories, emotions, and experiences. It is personal experience which gives the “life, texture, and subjective personal meaning to abstract concepts” (Kolb 1984: 21). Some concepts are universal, such as birth, life, and death,¹ and others can be very specific to a language and culture, for instance, that of German Heimat, Irish craic (fun, entertainment, having a good time), or French charme. The tendency to automatically and subconsciously categorize what we perceive means that to conceptualize is to categorize, to learn is to form categories, and to make decisions is to categorize because, “Categorization is necessary for action, and it is essential for survival” (Kövecses 2006: 17). The world we live in is an already pre-interpreted world in terms of categorization. We construe by way of frames (cf. Section 3.2) and understand complex experiences through conceptual metaphors (cf. Section 3.4). We cannot escape this conceptually and categorically mediated relationship to the physical and social worlds. Therefore, we not only passively perceive what we see, hear, smell, touch, and experience in the world but we actively, although usually subconsciously, construe its meaning for ourselves on the basis of concepts and categories which in turn are culturally and socially generated and maintained, and which are to a large extent linguistically mediated.² Children are engaged, up to the age of three years, in building complex and difficult blends between concepts, or developing

1 Universal concepts are usually derived from the human experience of living on this planet but are culture-specifically realized; the concept of death, for example, can evoke schemata of mourning but can also provoke schemata of joy, for instance, in the case of religions where death is construed as transition to a better place. In other cultures death may just be seen as a brute fact of life or as a “symbol of human weakness, a constant reminder of inadequate human mastery over nature, and accepted with such varied emotions as regret, puzzle, incomprehension and bitterness” (Parekh 2006: 121). 2 Other forms of mediation are sensory, auditory, visual, or olfactory. However, as Wittgenstein (1953) has demonstrated with the example of pain-behavior (cf. Chapter 2), these are typically translated into linguistic concepts to make them cognitively accessible.

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categories, which are seen culturally as obvious and natural. Having acquired these basic blends, the child builds “more and more blends that are recognized culturally as requiring work and learning” (Fauconnier and Turner 2002: 391), for example, reading novels, playing the piano, learning a L2, etc. Conceptual categories mediated through the tool of language are also linguistic categories. Since language, as we have seen in the previous chapter, has such a decisive structuring influence on our mental functions, and since certain conceptualizations are inscribed not only into the semantics of words and expressions, but also into the structure of a language, one can conclude that linguistically mediated, socioculturally produced concepts and categories also have a structuring influence on the mind, that is, on the individual’s modes of understanding, construction, and action. Dirven and Verspoor (1998) provide a graphic example of this mechanism with culturally different construals of the object horseshoe: [W]hat English construes as horseshoe (i.e. “shoe for horse”) is construed in French as fer à cheval “iron for the horse,” and as Hufeisen “hoof iron” in German. All these signs are motivated: English and French see a relationship between the animal as a whole and the protecting device, while German relates the protecting device to the relevant body part of the horse. Moreover, French and German highlight the material the protecting device is made of, whereas English by using shoe takes an anthropocentric view of the scene. (Dirven and Verspoor 1998: 15; emphasis in the original)

Whereas conceptual categories are usually denoted in the form of words or phrases, i.e., lexical items, they may also be made up as grammatical categories. Grammatical categories can organize lexical concepts which are defined by their relatively specific content in a certain manner so as to emphasize certain aspects of what is denoted by them. For example, the sentence The fifth day saw them coming down the mountain emphasizes the fact that it was indeed the fifth day, and no other day, when they returned, by dressing up the noun day in such a manner that it is given the status of a living subject, like an onlooker or participant, because only someone or something alive can actually see (cf. Halliday 1985: 322). This grammatical metaphor may be impossible to construct in some other languages (e.g., German) in which the day cannot be lent the same animate status. The emphasis on lexical items and grammatical categories for the process of conceptualization might imply that conceptual information is solely tied to these units and thus is atomistic in its make-up. However, this notion would be reductive because conceptual information can only make sense in relation to other concepts and to some broader sociocultural context, since a concept is always enmeshed in a larger conceptual network from which it acquires meaning in the first place. There is, then, no strict one-to-one relation between words or phrases

70 | 3 Formation of concepts and plausibility structures and concepts, since concepts, prototypes, and frames fully embody the subject’s and the cultural community’s complex experience of the world in which they are situated. Semantic representations in language are not identical to conceptual representations, although they are very closely interrelated, in that conceptual representations are influenced by semantic representations. If this were not the case, “memories will be unretrievable or uncodable in language, and the speaker will have nothing to talk about” (Levinson 1997: 39). Thus, the meanings of words are linked to concepts and prototypes in the mind of the subject in a manner he or she has learned in a myriad of direct, but also verbally mediated experiences in the process of socialization; they are coded in language and are therefore communicable, even if they represent very subjective, or abstract, events and memories. Words can only point to possible meanings whose range has been acquired in socialization.

3.1 From unmediated to mediated thought In Vygotsky’s (1978; 1986) view, natural processes and cognitive abilities are themselves subject to growth and maturation, but undergo a crucial transformation when they intersect the cultural line of development. For example, there is evidence that infants clearly show memory skills, in that they can recognize faces and objects, sometimes even better than adults.³ This type of memory is non-linguistic and, more generally, unmediated; Vygotsky would consider it to be natural perception. However, at a certain age (usually about two years of age) children learn to use cultural means such as prototypes, frames, concepts, and words (e.g., category names such as poultry, furniture, or vegetable) in order to enhance their memory performance. For certain mental processes, such as reasoning, categorizing, and structuring, this constitutes a definite improvement. However, the natural pre-linguistic memory capacity does not disappear with the acquisition of linguistically mediated concepts and modes of thinking; it still exists but has now come under the control of linguistic conceptualization. This means that the introduction of a psychological tool (language) into a mental function (memory) causes a fundamental transformation of this function. In the words of Vygotsky:

3 Babies aged about six months clearly have better face-recognition skills than adults. They also can distinguish faces of another species, for example, monkeys. Babies who received visual training retained the ability. But those with no training lost the skill by the time they were nine months old (cf. Pascalis and Slater 2003).

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Labeling enables the child to choose a specific object, to single it out from the entire situation he is perceiving. (. . . ) By means of words children single out separate elements, thereby overcoming the natural structure of the sensory field and forming new (artificially introduced and dynamic) structural centers. The child begins to perceive the world not only through his eyes but also through his speech. As a result, the immediacy of “natural” perception is supplanted by a complex mediated process; as such, speech becomes an essential part of the child’s cognitive development. (Vygotsky 1978: 32)

However, the effects of language acquisition and the ability to conceptualize and categorize (which develop simultaneously) also move in the opposite direction of internalization. Once a sign system has been internalized, it functions not merely as a psychological tool but as the object of reflection; we can only externalize ideas in the form of concepts and categories that we have previously internalized and appropriated. Like language as a whole, concepts and categories are socioculturally constructed and individually internalized, albeit never in an identical manner across individuals but always in a specific subjective fashion, based on the individual’s previous experiences and degree of access to the system of knowledge. Concepts are fundamentally linked to the socioculturally constituted meaning of words, phrases, or texts. As the child develops, so too do the concepts from the initial elementary level to increasingly higher levels of abstraction and categorization: “[Concepts] involve grouping together different entities on the basis of some similarity. The similarity can either be quite concrete (a concept of balls) or quite abstract (a concept of justice). Concepts allow us to organize our experience into coherent patterns and to draw inferences in situations we lack direct experience” (Siegler 1998: 213). Thus, we rely on concepts in every aspect of our daily activities, even if we have not directly experienced certain aspects. Concepts “structure what we perceive, how we get around in the world, and how we relate to other people” (Lakoff and Johnson 1980: 3). They can be defined as a culturally-based, socially transmitted and maintained network of systematic beliefs about how the world is (or could be) and which the subject appropriates on an ongoing basis for his or her needs. The mental preconditions for this higher kind of conceptual development are voluntary attention, logical memory, skills of abstraction, comparison, and differentiation, all facilitated by language. A new concept is formed when a sequence of abstracted features is synthesized again: “A concept emerges only when the abstracted traits are synthesized anew and the resulting abstract synthesis becomes the main instrument of thought. The decisive role in this process (. . . ) is played by the word, deliberately used to direct all the subprocesses of advanced concept formation” (Vygotsky 1986: 139). This “abstract synthesis,” guided by, but not identical to, the linguistic sign becomes the main feature of thinking, with which the child learns not only to understand the perceptible “reality,” but also

72 | 3 Formation of concepts and plausibility structures possible (and, by implication, impossible) realities. Concept development in children of the pre-linguistic stage can be demonstrated with tasks such as arranging building blocks: whereas young children arrange the blocks in a completely arbitrary manner, according to their own subjective criteria, older children use certain objective criteria for their arrangement (for instance, color, or shape) which they have acquired in the process of socialization and language acquisition (cf. Vygotsky 1986: 115–117; Daniels 1996: 10). Vygotsky shows how the use of concrete tools and the symbolic tool of language begin to develop in different directions, which he describes in his observation of children’s interaction with toys. Cognition of very young children is rooted in the concrete; therefore, their activities are motivated and constrained by objects in their immediate environment. Vygotsky argues that “things dictate to a child what he must do: a door demands to be opened and closed, a staircase to be climbed, a bell to be rung” (Vygotsky 1978: 96; emphasis in the original). It is not the object as such which dictates the action of children (and adults) but its canonical functional property within a cultural community, that is, the socially cued expectations about the normative use of the object. However, when children begin to engage in play, they can increasingly escape the external constraints of their immediate environment. These constraints are overcome and replaced by the internal rules of the imaginary situation, although they are still dictated by the normative function of objects or stereotypical events, as Vygotsky observes: Children, in playing at eating from a plate, have been shown to perform actions with their hands reminiscent of real eating, while all actions that did not designate eating were impossible. Throwing one’s hands back instead of stretching them forward toward the plate turned out to be impossible, for such an action would have a destructive effect on the game. (Vygotsky 1978: 100)

Therefore, the objects and their normative use, as experienced by the children in everyday activities, dictate the rules of the game. However, toys as objects do not themselves carry semantic meaning, but they have important pivots for detaching meaning from objects and attaching it to the symbols that take their place (cf. Vygotsky 1978: 97). Both the use of tools and symbolic play are activities that require external objects. In symbolic play, such as having tea together, taking the roles of fathers and mothers, or police and thieves, children fuse or blend the imaginary and the real in an experiential place in which the real is dissociated from their conventional correlations and re-assembled in a new, blended space in the imagination of the children, as expressed in their play. By playfully taking on the role of others, children also find out how it might feel to be in that role: “In caring for a doll or in constructing conversations between soft toys and puppets, children explore how it feels to be a parent rather than a child, a nurse rather than a patient, a

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teacher rather than a pupil” (Spink 1990: 25). The blended space between the imagined reality, as triggered and mediated by the presence of toys, and the aspects of reality, as experienced by observations of or interactions with more knowledgeable others, serves as a gateway for practicing the children’s own takes on the present and the future of certain configurations of their daily Lebenswelt (or lifeworld; cf. Section 7.1). Constructive participation in play requires a high level of sophistication, not only because the episodes have to be mimetically enacted, but also because of the coordination of different perspectives on the basis of the semiotic resources supplied by material artifacts and language, and blending mental and emotional spaces. Vygotsky (1986: 109) calls any activity that is organized in part by external objects “mediated activity.” Mediation itself develops through a number of different developmental stages. Natural, unmediated memory is similar to eidetic memory; a direct response follows a stimulus. Mediated memory involves interposing a second stimulus, such as toys or a knot in a handkerchief (cf. Kozulin 1986: xxv). However, by far the most frequently used mediator is the linguistic sign: “When human beings reach the developmental stage at which they employ signs to mediate memory, two transformations take place. First, their minds are now able to operate with mediated memory. Second, objects in their environment are given new ‘identities’ to serve mediation and help them produce proper responses” (Watson 1995: 61). Once subjects have developed the ability to operate with mediated memory, the next level, according to Vygotsky, is characterized by the internalization of the mediating symbols and the beginning of the use of internal signs. Internalization is particularly crucial for Vygotsky’s theory of the development of language use because for him, words and signs start out as external objects; they are not semiotics developed internally by the subject. But throughout the development from complexes over pseudoconcepts to concepts, language is being internalized by the subject and subsequently used as a central pivot for his or her thinking. This leads Vygotsky to suggest that children pass through different stages of conceptual development. Initially, there are thematic complexes, stressing relations between specific pairs of objects in terms of similarity or difference. Subsequently, chains of complexes develop where children momentarily classify objects on the basis of abstract dimensions, such as color or shape but frequently switch the basis for categorization. This can include processes of underextending and overextending concepts. Underextending occurs when, for a child, the concept of dog can only be used for their pet, but not for the dog next door; overextending occurs, for instance, when a child uses the word daddy for every male adult or kitty for lions and tigers.

74 | 3 Formation of concepts and plausibility structures What is evident from Vygotsky’s model is that children’s pre-verbal concepts, or complexes, must be able to adapt to linguistically mediated types of conceptual organization. Despite the fact that “early conceptual structures impose strong constraints on later development” (Boyer 1996: 209), they can be modified in the framework of domain-specific principles. Although the exact processes of children learning the meaning of words are still under investigation,⁴ some principles can be deduced from the behavior children exhibit in their learning process. Owens (2001), for example, proposes three consecutive principles that are fundamental to learning the meaning of words and concepts and that are supported by research findings presented in the previous and current chapters of this book. Firstly, the reference principle implies that words refer to things; secondly, the extendability principle implies that words refer to a class of objects and not necessarily to a unique object; and thirdly, the whole-object principle implies that words refer to whole objects, and not just parts of it; learning the words for constituent parts of the whole is a later development.⁵ Children are actively engaged in processes of acquiring language and concepts by asking questions, making associations, forming hypotheses, seeking clarification, and testing their understanding of a word or concept through interacting with adults. Thus, children gradually develop their knowledge of concepts and categories through a process of induction, i.e., generalizing from their own stock of personal experience. Adult feedback plays an important role in the processes of conceptual defining and redefining. For instance, when encountering different animals and adult-initiated finer differentiation of concepts, the child, over time, gains a wider range of experiences of concepts, for example, what is, and what is not, a cat. A child may at first recognize the word cat only with reference to the family cat by underextending the concept. Subsequently, when the child hears the word in other contexts, for instance, referring to another cat, furry toys, or pictures, the child expands the concept from the reference to the family cat and uses it as a label for all cats. When the child uses the concept of cat for other an-

4 When the attention of the child is drawn to something, and a person is saying a word, it is not clear how the child discriminates the stipulated object from others around it. Lund (2003: 46) illustrates this point with the example of “a cat chasing a ball across a room and a parent pointing to it and saying ‘cat’. How does the child know the word refers to the cat? It could refer to something else in the scene (e.g. the ball); it could refer to part of the cat (e.g. the tail); it could refer to a property of the cat (e.g. furriness); or it could refer to something the cat is doing (e.g. running).” 5 Vygotsky (1986: 98) already recognized that a concept is by no means a stable, “isolated, ossified, and changeless formation, but an active part of the intellectual process, constantly engaged in serving communication, understanding, and problem solving.”

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imals as well, he or she overextends the concept by connecting the concept cat to other four-legged, furry animals. Here, another learning process kicks in, that of “pruning” (Elman et al. 1996) these connections so that eventually the concept of cat applies only to felines. Lund (2003) asks a fundamental question with regard to early conceptual and lexical development, whether children develop a concept about a category first and then the word to describe the category, or whether they learn a word and then the category to which it applies. In other words, does a child discover that there is a group of objects that are furry, have four legs and which bark and then find there is a word, “dog”, to describe this group or does the child learn the word “dog” and then find it applies to furry, four-legged objects that bark? (Lund 2003: 47)

There seems to be evidence that both developments occur: sometimes children learn the concept first, and then the word; sometimes they learn the word before they learn the concept (cf. Bee 2000: 22). Children cannot use words accurately until they have developed the appropriate concept. When, for example, a child is told that malamutes are dogs, and the child has a developed concept of dog, he or she can immediately infer that malamutes have four legs, fur, and a tail, that they are animals, that they can bark, and that they most likely are friendly to people (cf. Siegler 1998: 213). Children hence acquire a huge number of concepts, both concrete and abstract, for instance, concepts of time and space, of tables, Play Stations, school, stables, houses, trees, autumn, and so on. Harré and Gillet (1994) comment: In learning to think, one learns to make discursive moves in what one takes to be the way that others make them and then to modify and adapt one’s responses to conform to the practice of those others. Thus, in learning to use concepts – that is, learning to use the relevant words and other signs – I also, and essentially, learn to register the responses of others to me and what I do. (Harré and Gillet 1994: 176)

The acquisition of language and concepts not only relates to isolated words and concepts but, more importantly, involves the relationship between, and hierarchy of, words, concepts, and what they refer to. The responses of others to my understanding of certain concepts are also relevant regulators for modifying my knowledge of concepts. Sociologists Berger and Luckmann suggest that we are socialized into “plausibility structures” (Berger 1969: 45), that is, conceptual understandings of the world and rational supports for these understandings: The world of everyday life is not only taken for granted as reality by the ordinary members of society in the subjectively meaningful conduct of their lives. It is a world that originates in their thoughts and actions, and is maintained as real by these. (. . . ) I apprehend the reality of everyday life as an ordered reality. Its phenomena are prearranged in patterns that seem

76 | 3 Formation of concepts and plausibility structures to be independent of my apprehension of them and impose themselves on the latter. The reality of everyday life appears already objectified, that is, constituted by an order of objects that have been designated as objects before my appearance on the scene. The language used in everyday life continuously provides me with the necessary objectification and posits the order within which these make sense and within which everyday life has meaning for me. (. . . ) In this manner language marks the coordinates of my life in society and fills my life with meaningful objects. (Berger and Luckmann 1966: 33, 35–36; emphasis in the original)

As we come to increasingly rely on these plausibility structures in our processes of thought and (inter-)action, we develop a natural attitude, that is, a sense of a natural, plausible, and taken-for-granted reality. The natural attitude has replaced the early empirically-based mode of understanding by children, which is largely non-reflective. Once children have learned to understand and relate to the sociocultural and material worlds on a conceptual basis, they are able to abstract features of objects, generalize these into culturally determined categories, and form relationships among these categories, including plausibility structures. The patterns of plausibility structures are not always novel in the sense of being created by each individual but they are to a large extent preconceived and sedimented into cultural knowledge which is tacitly influencing thought, emotion, and behavior and typically taken for “normal” by the subject. Emotion, thought, and behavior are not necessarily separate domains, as they constantly influence each other and tacitly suggest to us what is “normal.” For example, when attempting to solve a problem, the potentially wide range of hypotheses and information is narrowed down by our emotion, because it “biases us to focus on a subset of the hypotheses and helps us to limit the range of information that we will see as relevant to them” (Schumann 1997: 245). We do not necessarily take into consideration other information for solving the problem because of our gut feeling, or internalized perception of normality which is based on plausibility structures. This internalized sense of normality can, however, sometimes become explicit when, for example, some mishaps occur, or when one is learning a second language. Plausibility structures are specific sociocultural processes that continually reinforce and reconstruct the social world and, thus, also the conditions for the social processes of constructing and legitimizing the plausibility structures.

3.2 Concepts, prototypes, and frames Plausibility structures are developed on the basis of concepts and categories. Both are not only acquired by children and adolescents in the early socialization process but are also developed by adults as they come across new objects, ideas, and experiences. Conceptual categories are acquired, according to cognitive psycholo-

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gist Lawrence Barsalou (1992: 26), in five steps, namely by (1) forming a structural description of the entity, (2) searching for category representations similar to the structural description, (3) selecting the most similar category representation, (4) drawing inferences about the entity, and (5) storing information about the categorization. This model of conceptual category-acquisition emphasizes the relatively vague, yet at the same time fundamental character of categories and concepts for the working mind. They can only be formed by comparing the new entity with something similar that has been encountered before and stored in memory. The process of comparing refers not only to the entity in its totality but also to certain aspects of the entity, such as the characteristics of being four-legged, furry (cf. Section 3.1), so as to draw inferences about the entity. This model can also be extended to understanding new concepts in a L2, although the comparisons will initially be made to familiar L1 constructs and the medium of understanding will frequently be the L1. In order to be able to categorize a newly encountered entity, one can try to establish probalistic relations between the entity and the various features with concepts of similar entities. Psychologists Eleanor Rosch, Carolyn Mervis and their colleagues (1975; 1976) developed a theory of probalistic representations of concepts, based on four notions: cue validities, basic-level categories, and nonrandom distribution of features and prototypes. They hypothesize that children can categorize objects as examples of certain concepts and categories by comparing their cue validities. Cue validities are defined as the degree of frequency with which features accompany a concept so that the presence of these features makes an object likely to be an example of a concept. For instance, the feature capable of flight triggers the cue validity of bird on the basis of the degree of frequency with which this feature applies to the object bird, and in proportion to the infrequency with which other objects can fly (although not all birds can fly and other things, such as airplanes or balloons, can also fly). Thus, the probalistic approach assumes that some objects are considered better examples of concepts than others, since some features trigger higher cue validities than others. During the process of socialization, children do not acquire isolated concepts on the basis of cue validities of individual features. Rather, they develop correlations among features of different concepts so that a network of features of different concepts is developed in the mind which is not stable, but constantly expanding and undergoing revision; new concepts can develop, and previously known concepts can be re-evaluated. The definition of probalistic features of concepts leads neatly to the theory of prototypes developed by Eleanor Rosch under the influence of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s notion of family resemblance. This notion is directed against the classical view of categorization that all the members of a category must have the same

78 | 3 Formation of concepts and plausibility structures essential features. Wittgenstein exemplifies his reflections with the category of games, which include a large number of members, for instance, board games, card games, ball games, Olympic Games, and so on. His basic question is “What is common to them all?” (Wittgenstein 1953: § 66), aiming to establish whether there are any essential features inherent in the category of game. Wittgenstein observes that there are no essential features definable for this category: “[I]f you look at them you will not see something common to all, but similarities, relationships, and a whole series of them at that” (Wittgenstein 1953: § 66). This means that membership in a category is not defined by a fixed set of properties, comparable to a family where not all members have blond hair, large ears, or blue eyes. Rather, the category (and family) members are defined by sharing certain properties with some members, and other properties with others. Wittgenstein summarizes that, “the result of this examination is: we see a complicated network of similarities overlapping and criss-crossing: sometimes overall similarities, sometimes similarities of detail” (Wittgenstein 1953: § 66). Wittgenstein’s examination suggests that, rather than sharing a fixed set of essential properties, categories may be defined by family resemblance which means that membership is graded: there are more typical and less typical members. Furthermore, a category may be subject to constant extension, for instance in the category of games, where more recent games such as video games, online gaming platforms such as Play Station or Xbox, Second Life, etc., are undoubtedly members of the category. Even infants as young as three months can abstract prototypical forms and patterns from basic concepts and notice cue validities and correlations between features (cf. Bomba and Siqueland 1983). Subsequently, they can form “increasing numbers of superordinate and subordinate level categories, move from childbasic to standard-basic categories for those concepts on which they started with child-basic categories, and become sensitive to more complex and subtle correlational patterns” (Siegler 1998: 222). In the process of acquiring concepts and categories, children soon experience the problem of fuzzy boundaries. For every category there is the best member, or the prototype, as well as more peripheral or marginal members. For example, a sparrow is a better example of the concept bird than a penguin or an ostrich because the sparrow’s features of size and ability to fly trigger more valid cues for the concept. The typical example (or prototype) of sparrow for the concept bird comes to mind more readily than peripheral members of that same concept (for instance, penguin), as Rosch and Mervis (1975) have shown in experimental evidence. A prototype can be defined in this context as “a single, centralized, category representation” (Barsalou 1992: 28). However, there is a certain variation and flexibility in the way we construct our mental representation of categories. Barsalou (1993) has shown that in only half of the cases when we list features for categories, such as chair and bird, do they match those

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offered by another person. Furthermore, only two-thirds of the features used to define properties showed up again when the same individuals were offered definitions of the same category some weeks later (cf. Barsalou 1993). Therefore, it seems plausible to assume that prototypes are not stable mental representations but are created instead in specific contexts and for specific purposes, whereby certain aspects of the family resemblance of the prototype may be accentuated. If prototypes are not stable mental representations, they can be challenged and contested; prototypes are particularly prone to contestation in political discourse, for instance, in the categories of democracy, freedom, nationalism, liberalism, and many more. The boundaries between concepts, especially in peripheral regions, can be uncertain, or fuzzy. An item may bear resemblance to more than just one category. The concept whale, for example, is not typical of the category mammal, being far removed from the central prototype. Whales do resemble prototypical fish more than mammals since they share some characteristic features with fish, in that they live underwater and have fins. The same ambiguity is applicable to peripheral membership of many other concepts and categories, for instance, those of fruit and vegetables. Many people would be unsure if rhubarb is a member of the fruit family and whether almonds are fruit. In spite of this, we all have a clear mental image of the conceptualization of birds, fruit, and vegetables; it just does not fit all members of the category equally well. Peripheral members are less entrenched in the human mind, and, if it really matters, highly specified definitions can be checked in relevant reference works. Cross-cultural research in anthropological linguistics has shown that the definition of prototypical and peripheral membership of categories can vary. Charles Fillmore (1982) and George Lakoff (1987) both suggest that people have developed folk theories about the world, based on their social experience and rooted in their culture. These theories are called frames by Fillmore and idealized cognitive models (ICMs) by Lakoff. Fillmore’s definition of frame shifted from a more linguistic position in 1975 to a more cognitively oriented notion by 1985. Whereas in 1975 he defined frame as “any system of linguistic choices – the easiest case being collections of words, but also including choices of grammatical rules or linguistic categories – that can get associated with prototypical instances of scenes” (Fillmore 1975: 124), a decade later he played down the linguistic characteristics in the definition of frames as “specific unified frameworks of knowledge, or coherent schematizations of experience” (Fillmore 1985: 223). More recently, he defined frames as “cognitive structures (. . . ) knowledge of which is presupposed for the concepts encoded by the words” (Fillmore and Atkins 1992: 75). These definitions suggest that Fillmore originally conceived frames as linguistic constructs but subsequently re-interpreted them along the lines of folk theories. In his theory, Fillmore combines the notion of frame with that of scene.

80 | 3 Formation of concepts and plausibility structures Whereas frame refers to the general sociocultural, cognitive, and linguistic levels of conceptualization, these levels can only be relevant to someone by relating them to concrete personal experiences, or the scene. The term scene is to be understood not only in a traditional visual sense, but also “for familiar kinds of interpersonal transactions, standard scenarios, familiar layouts, institutional structures, enactive experiences, body image; and in general any kind of coherent segment, large or small, of human beliefs, actions, experiences, or imaginings” (Fillmore 1977: 63). Thus, scenes and frames activate one another, though the degree of complexity can vary. For example, a certain linguistic unit in a text (e.g., the term innocent bystander) can provoke associations which can in turn activate other linguistic forms or further associations so that in a text or utterance one linguistic form is triggered by another (e.g., a crime scene reported in the news). However, in cross-cultural communication, or in interaction across social boundaries, the scenes activated may be different from those typically activated within a language or social community. The term frame should not be taken to imply that there are necessarily welldefined boundaries between those elements that form part of the frame for the meaning of a particular word and those that do not. Therefore, Fauconnier and Turner (2002: 102) suggest that mental spaces, or “small conceptual packets,” are structured by frames. Frames have a conceptual as well as a cultural dimension. The word mother, for example, belongs to various different frames, among which the genetic frame and the social frame are most salient (for instance, stepmother, surrogate mother, foster mother, donor mother, adoptive mother, etc.). In the conceptual dimension, the meaning of mother is defined by the fact that it stands in contrast to concepts such as father, sister, or aunt, because there are relatively stable semantic features that differentiate it from these other concepts which are located in the same frame. In a cultural dimension, however, the word carries a complex range of associations which are difficult to define in a precise manner; but this range of associations influences the way in which the word mother is interpreted in a particular location at a particular time, and therefore contributes to its meaning. The concepts of frame and scene include the traditional concept of connotation which means that, although a linguistic expression is shared by all members of a cultural community, there are discrepancies as to the specific subjective conceptualization of that expression, as everyone has accumulated a certain stock of personal experiences which influence subjective conceptualizations. Fillmore (1982) also highlights the fact that sometimes the same phenomenon is referred to by different words when it is located in different frames. For example, if the boundary between land and sea is approached from land, in English it is referred to as the coast, but if approached from the sea it is called the shore (Fillmore 1982: 121). These frames, however, are culture and language-specific; in German,

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for example, the boundary between sea and land is always referred to as the Küste (‘coast’), regardless of the side from which it is approached. Frames, then, can be seen as structured mental representations of an area of human experience which are broadly shared between the members of a cultural community. The category of frame is a wider concept than that of prototype because it includes a larger amount of underlying knowledge which is activated when a concept is mentioned. Frames not only refer to knowledge represented by a single lexical item but can consist of a number of words, expressions, or phrases, designating a cohesive organization of coherent human experience within a culture. Therefore, frames constitute a huge and very complex system of knowledge about self, Other, and world. Frames can also define something which does not actually exist in the material and social worlds. For example, time frames such as days of the week, weeks of the month, and months of the year are not properties of nature, where we would only find days and nights as a result of the natural cycle of the movement of the planet earth in relation to the sun. Frames are therefore often idealized which is the reason why Lakoff (1987) calls them idealized cognitive models. Folk theories which give rise to frames or idealized cognitive models (ICMs) are obviously not scientific theories, but rather collections of cultural viewpoints. Fillmore (1982) exemplifies how these folk theories work with the concept of bachelor. It is obvious that some bachelors are more prototypical than others; for example, the Pope would not be a typical prototype of the concept of bachelor. Both Fillmore (1982) and Lakoff (1987: 68–71) suggest that people have two types of knowledge about concepts, consisting of dictionary-type knowledge (for instance, bachelor as an unmarried man) and an encyclopedia-type of cultural knowledge about bachelorhood and marriage – the frame or ICM. Normally, people use the word bachelor in a typical ICM, namely that of marriage as a monogamous union between eligible individuals, typically involving romantic love and courtship from which a bachelor is normally excluded. It is this idealized folk knowledge which governs the use of the word bachelor and restrains the term from being used for celibate priests, the Pope, or individuals living in isolation, such as the fictional Robinson Crusoe. In this view, the interaction of semantic knowledge and encyclopedic knowledge results in typicality-effects which are very similar to prototypes, as defined by Rosch et al. (1976). However, they place more emphasis on the cultural background of the process of generating prototypes, which may differ significantly from one cultural community to another. Clearly, prototypes, frames, ICMs, and concepts are acquired casually and implicitly during the process of socialization (and beyond), and they are also internalized in their complex relationships with one another. Concepts are organized in hierarchies which can be differentiated into three levels of generality

82 | 3 Formation of concepts and plausibility structures (cf. Rosch et al. 1976): a superordinate level, a basic level, and a subordinate level. These three levels differ in their balance between information and usefulness. Individuals tend to categorize by referring to the basic level of a category (for instance, a car), as opposed to the superordinate (e.g., vehicle) or subordinate (e.g., coupé) levels. This is because, “We categorize the world under two contradictory pressures” (Kövecses 2006: 45), namely grouping things together on the basis of similarities (for example, has a particular shape, has a seat, has four legs, is used to sit on for the category of chair) and reflecting distinctions (for instance, distinguishing chairs from sofas, tables, or other members of the furniture category). Whereas the superordinate level distinguishes one category from another in a maximal way (for example, furniture, vegetable, vehicle), the subordinate level emphasizes similarities between the concepts (e.g., kitchen chair, armchair, office chair). “[B]asic-level categories seem to be our best compromise to simultaneously satisfy the contradictory pressures of working with categories that minimize differences among category members, on the one hand, and categories that maximize differences between a category and neighboring categories, on the other hand” (Kövecses 2006: 45–46). The basic level is identified as the cognitively salient level because it is used most in everyday life. Thus, it is also the level acquired first by children and the level at which adults spontaneously name objects in experiments, avoiding both over- and undergeneralization. However, in recent times the notions of prototypes and concepts as defined above have been criticized because they imply that one and the same invariant structure represents one particular concept or prototype in all possible contexts (cf. Violi 2008). These notions seem to be too inflexible, considering that the functioning of the human being in the world is much more complex and flexible than any fixed structure could capture. Rosch has subsequently adopted a much broader approach with regards to representations such as concepts or prototypes, in that she now sees concepts as intrinsically non-representational: Concepts and categories do not represent the world in the mind, they are a participating part of the world-mind whole of which the sense of mind (of having a mind that is seeing or thinking) is one pole, and objects of mind (such as visible objects, sounds, thoughts, emotions, and so on) are the other pole. Concepts – red, chair, afraid, yummy, armadillo, and all the rest – inextricably bind, in many different functioning ways, that sense of being or having a mind to the sense of the objects of the mind. (Rosch 1999: 72)

This shift in perspective from understanding concepts as representational of objects, sounds, thoughts, emotions, smells, etc., to highlighting their active participating nature in the world-mind relations is derived from their direct and natural mediating function between mind and world as embodied and anchored in specific situations at a particular time and in a specific location: “Concepts are the

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natural bridge between mind and world to such an extent that they require us to change what we think of as mind and what we think of as world; concepts occur only in actual situations in which they function as participating parts of the situation rather than either as representations or as mechanisms for identifying objects” (Rosch 1999: 61). Although in line with current research on embodiment (cf. Ziemke, Zlatev, and Frank 2008), this radical view undermines the qualities previously attached to concepts, prototypes, and frames, namely their contextindependence which facilitates abstract thought. However, this aspect has not disappeared, as the activation of concepts, frames, and prototypes in concrete situations presupposes their previous internalization by the subject. Concepts, categories, prototypes, frames, and ICMs, understood as habits of the mind, are fundamentally internalized in the process of socialization (and beyond) in order to provide a structure for a world that would otherwise be too complex and chaotic for the subject to make sense of. They contribute to stabilizing the process of otherwise unlimited semiosis. At the same time, they function as the foundational elements of generative knowledge in order to facilitate specific actions in particular situations, thereby stabilizing modes of action to a certain extent.

3.3 Schemata and stereotypes The term schema dates back to the work on memory by British psychologist Frederic Bartlett (1932). Schemata are acquired during the process of socialization; they are discursively produced and their main function lies in organizing and structuring thought about certain patterns of life so that coping with everyday situations does not always require deliberate and effortful thought. However, Bartlett found that people’s memories are sometimes distorted by their subjective understanding of the event in question. Therefore, schemata can influence the intake of new information in terms of biasing it, preventing it from being internalized (if it does not fit any existing schema), or distorting memories of how things happened. For example, when trying to remember your last birthday party, I might recall that you blew out the candles on the birthday cake, even though you did not do so this year. The explanation is that I use my schema of a typical birthday party to fill in gaps of memory (or knowledge). Schemata are therefore a broader concept than frames, categories, or ICMs; they are a structured cluster of pre-conceived ideas. Schemata are highly connected modules of cognition (but also of emotion and behavior) that are constitutive for the human mind. Basically, there are, according to Shore (1996: 47), two primary sources of conceptualization of schemata: personal mental models, relying on a combination of personal experiences and sociocultural concepts, and cultural models, contain-

84 | 3 Formation of concepts and plausibility structures ing conventionally constructed and distributed cognitive resources of a cultural community. Personal memory schemata are not stable but highly dynamic; they are constantly adjusted according to experiences. A schema can influence the way in which we interpret new information, remember information, or make inferences about people and events (cf. Taylor 1989: 83–86). Schemata can also create concepts, for instance, in relation to time: “The concepts ‘week’, ‘day’, and ‘Monday’ emerge when a bounding schema profiles bounded regions in the domain of time; a sequencing schema structures the concept ‘week’ into a succession of discrete bounded entities; and a further schema profiles the first of these successive entities” (Taylor 1989: 85). This mechanism extends to social schemata to create and represent our social knowledge (for instance, knowledge about the typical role of accountants, teachers, footballers, and other role schemata). Since schemata influence our personal and social constructs, they also have the potential to influence our expectations, as triggered by certain circumstances. We only have to observe a few traits of a typical object or situation to infer the traits that we cannot perceive directly. For example, if someone gets up at a party, calls for attention, and raises a glass at a table, one can infer that this person is about to propose a toast to someone (or something). Here, the phrase Now I raise my glass is an expression of the institutionalized activity of proposing a toast; linguistic knowledge and knowledge of social practices cannot be separated. However, inferences of this kind work only if the world is properly structured in terms of concepts, prototypes, and schemata, all of which are based on cultural patterns of knowledge. Schemata reflect in a structured manner the lawfulness of the world. However, not every schema is shared by all members of a speech community (cf. Kristiansen 2008: 419–420) but the distribution of the most salient schemata to all members of a cultural community contributes to the coherence of the group or cultural network, while other elements of schemata may be subjectively constructed. Some schemata may harden to stereotypes and prejudices and thus become very biased. Like schemata, stereotypes do not necessarily have to be seen only in negative terms, such as distorting information: There is no doubt that the contents of various stereotypes have their origins in cultural traditions, which may or may not be related to overgeneralized common experience, past or present. (. . . ) [S]tereotypes arise from a process of categorization. They introduce simplicity and order where there is complexity and nearly random variation. They can help us to cope only if fuzzy differences between groups are transmitted into clear ones, or new differences created where none exist. (Tajfel 1969: 82)

However, turning fuzzy boundaries into clear distinctions implies exaggeration of differences and stabilizing processes of construal. Stereotypes can be defined as culturally derived and socially constructed by means of categor-

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ization due to the limited capacity of human cognition and memory. The individual acquires stereotypical knowledge about others in his or her understanding of people belonging to other social groups (cf. Section 6.4), which can have a serious impact on subjective constructs: “For most part we do not first see, and then define, we define first and then see. In the great blooming, buzzing confusion of the outer world we pick out what our culture has already defined for us, and we tend to perceive that which we have picked out in the form stereotyped for us by our culture” (Lippmann 1922: 54–55). The term stereotype was introduced by American journalist Walter Lippmann (1922) to express the notion that people generally hold certain views about groups of people which are clichéd and thus do not do justice to the individual members of that group. Stereotyping is generally seen as a negative process, as stereotypes tend to misrepresent the Other in a simplifying, imprecise, and reductive manner. Like prejudices, stereotypes can reduce images of other people, ethnic groups, nations, or religious communities to such extent that the Other can be hurt by such misleading constructs.⁶ Once acquired, stereotypes can be very durable and lead to the (mis-)attribution of characteristics to others which can have a very negative impact on intracultural, but in particular on intercultural communication. Attributions in intersubjectve communication may be a result of the perception of abnormal communicative behavior of others (relating to the sociocultural norms of the L1 speech community of the attributor) which may be a result of divergent cultural patterns, social norms, and linguistic behavior of the other. The process of attribution falls short of analyzing and differentiating the cultural, social, and pragmatic backgrounds others bring into the conversation, and instead attribute the behavior prematurely to the personality of the other. However, there are not only stereotypes about Other and others (hetero-stereotypes) but also about the subject’s own group and its manifestations (auto-stereotypes), in which constructs relevant for one’s own construals of identity, both individual and social, can be felt to be misleading. When outsiders (mis-)construe them, usually an emotional response to this kind of stereotype is generated (which can be exploited in L2 learning, cf. Chapter 10). Stereotypes can also be seen in a much more positive light when one assumes them to have a functional role in structuring mental concepts, with the purpose of coping with the immense flood of stimuli individuals that are bombarded with in everyday life. In this view, stereotypes are a necessary part of human cognition with the function of filtering stimuli, and thus economizing cognitive pro6 Whereas stereotypes refer to the cognitive level, prejudices refer to the affective level of complexes people may hold with regard to other groups of people. Discrimination may be the result of both (cf. Jonas and Mast 2007: 69).

86 | 3 Formation of concepts and plausibility structures cesses. Stereotypes can help to deal with uncertainties, to generalize from limited data, and to define self and others, albeit at the price of sometimes unfounded generalization, reduction, and accentuation.⁷ Stereotyping necessarily involves a maximization of homogeneity within different categories and a minimization of similarity between a category and its counterpart. However, stereotypes are more than just cognitive schemata which make social reality easier and more economical to understand: “Stereotypes do not simply exist in individuals’ heads. They are socially and discursively constructed in the course of everyday communication, and, once objectified, assume an independent and sometimes prescriptive reality. It is naïve to argue that stereotypes are simply a byproduct of the cognitive need to simplify reality” (Augoustinos and Walker 1995: 222). Augoustinos and Walker emphasize the social-discursive construction of stereotypes which, rather than just making aspects of “reality” more economical to understand, contain certain value judgments of the people who contributed to constructing the stereotype. It is the independent quality of the objectified stereotype which makes it difficult to deconstruct, and it is the prescriptive quality which can make stereotypes potentially dangerous in terms of discrimination. Since at least two speech communities are involved in L2 learning, and since the typical adult L2 learner has already acquired a stereotypical image of the Other, as based on dominant discursive constructs of the L1 community, the discussion and deconstruction of stereotypes, and the problematization of premature attribution processes have to form an integral part of L2 instruction (cf. Section 10.2). The deconstruction of stereotypes and the suspension of premature attributions are valuable processes for opening up cognitive pathways into the cultural and socio-pragmatic patterns and structures of the discursive behavior of cultural others in terms of arriving at a differentiated understanding of their behavior, rather than simply attributing perceived inadequacies and instances of impoliteness to the other person as such, thus significantly reducing the cultural other.

3.4 Conceptual metaphors The conceptualization of experience in subjective and collective dimensions not only generates concepts, prototypes, frames, ICMs, schemata, and stereotypes, but can combine elements of these to create conceptual metaphors. These con-

7 Accentuation means that similarities within a certain group are exaggerated, whereas similarities between groups are played down.

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ceptual metaphors have the purpose of conceptualizing one domain of experience in terms of another so as to make it more accessible. In a traditional view, metaphors are seen as mere ornaments of language; they are deliberately and artfully employed by skilled orators or poets with significant artistic talents to make their rhetorical or artistic point more convincingly. Therefore, the realm of metaphors is deemed to be that of the word: metaphors are linguistic phenomena, and orators or poets using metaphors with ease must have a special talent to do so, for example, Cicero or Shakespeare. As such, metaphors are rhetorical tropes based on a resemblance between two seemingly unrelated entities; the first item is described as either being, or at least equal to, the second item in some way. In Richards’ classic definition (1936), the item to which attributes are ascribed is the tenor while the item from which attributes are borrowed is the vehicle. One example of this mechanism is Shakespeare’s metaphor “Juliet is the sun,” in which Juliet is the tenor and the sun is the vehicle. Of course, the person by the name of Juliet cannot be the sun in a literal sense, but this metaphor invokes attributes and emotions associated with the sun (e.g., bright, warming, life-giving, center of our solar system) and transfers them to an utterly unrelated topic, in this case a person by the name of Juliet. If such entities are compared or equaled metaphorically, it is the result of a conscious and deliberate intention on the part of the author. However, the aspects that are metaphorically conveyed on Juliet are those of being a warm, bright and central person in the life of the speaker, whereas other aspects of the sun are ignored, for example, the material consistence of being a body of hot gases in the universe. In accordance with this traditional approach, metaphors are used as figures of speech (or text) with the intention of making a certain configuration more accessible to the recipients, or to bring certain points across in a forceful and assertive manner. However, since metaphor is only used deliberately for special effect, it is neither an integral part of everyday interaction nor of everyday thought and reasoning (cf. Kövecses 2002: vii). This traditional view of metaphor as a literary and rhetorical ornament of language has been fundamentally challenged by cognitive linguists George Lakoff and Mark Johnson in their ground-breaking work Metaphors we live by (1980). They suggest that metaphor is a property of concepts (and not of language or words); hence, they introduce the term conceptual metaphor, as distinct from, but not unrelated to, linguistic metaphor. Lakoff’s and Johnson’s central assumption is that, “Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphoric in nature” (Lakoff and Johnson 1980: 3). The main function of conceptual metaphors is to make certain concepts more readily accessible for comprehension, and thus organize and structure the more abstract realms of thought. In this capacity, “Metaphors may create realities for us,

88 | 3 Formation of concepts and plausibility structures especially social realities” (Lakoff and Johnson 1980: 156). This approach to metaphors suggests that, “The language is secondary. The mapping is primary” (Lakoff 1993: 208). Fauconnier (1997: 1) elaborates on this point by suggesting that “mappings between domains are at the heart of the unique human cognitive faculty of producing, transferring, and processing meaning.” Hence, the ability to make connections between two different domains of knowledge, thereby creating novel meaning, is at the center of the creative human mind. These mappings between domains are not inscribed in the combinatorial structure of language, but they are facilitated by the “cognitive constructions that language acts upon” (Fauconnier 1997: 13). Thus, language and its grammar guides the meaning construction up to a point but further choices have to be made on the level of constructing mappings and the pragmatics of the counterfactual, i.e., the imagined situations counter to fact, such as If I were you, I wouldn’t mess with me (cf. Fauconnier 1997: 14–18). From this perspective, metaphors are not mere rhetorical or artistic linguistic ornaments but a fundamental and integral part of human thought and reasoning. Metaphors are not only deliberately employed by poets or orators but, more fundamentally, are effortlessly (and usually subconsciously) used by every individual in the activities of speaking, writing, or thinking. Common words and concepts by which people construct their everyday world(s) are typically appropriated from other contexts. For example, the phrase to grasp a meaning transposes the verb to grasp, which is usually located in the domain of physical action, to the domain of abstract thought. This means that metaphor is a central phenomenon of human thought processes; it becomes an important focus of cognitive investigations because, “Understanding how metaphor is used may help us understand better how people think, how they make sense of the world and each other, and how they communicate” (Cameron 2003: 2). Linguistic patterns, which at first glance may not be considered metaphorical, reveal, upon closer inspection, perhaps subtly, their metaphorical underpinnings. For example, the metaphorical underpinnings of expressions such as thanks for your time or I see what you mean have been lost so that the transferred image is absent, and not everyone using the phrase is conscious of its metaphorical character. Each metaphor operates on two levels, or on two domains; corresponding to Richards’ (1936) terms tenor and vehicle, Lakoff (1993) introduces the terminology target and source. The target domain is the conceptual domain at which the process of comprehension is aimed. The source domain is the conceptual field from which metaphorical expressions are drawn. One domain, the source, is used to conceptualize a second, the target, (a) by individuating the entities of the latter in terms of its own (source) entities (sometimes indeed making, or constituting, entities in the target domain), and (b) by “sanction[ing] the use of source domain language and inference patterns for target domain concepts” (Lakoff 1993: 207).

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A metaphorical expression is simply “a linguistic expression (word, phrase, sentence) that is a surface realization of such cross-domain mapping” (Lakoff 1993: 203). A mapping, in the most general mathematical sense, is a correspondence between two sets that assigns to each element in the first domain a counterpart in the second. Conceptual metaphors employ normally a more abstract concept as target and a more concrete concept as their source, thus aiming to foster an understanding of abstract configurations in terms of more concrete processes. The basic formula is target is source, for example, life is a journey. Metaphors require an understanding of the systematic mappings between the source domain and the target domain which are usually not consciously employed but remain on a subconscious level: [W]hen we know a conceptual metaphor, we use the linguistic expressions that reflect it in such a way that we do not violate the mappings that are conventionally fixed for the linguistic community. In other words, not any element of b can be mapped onto any element of a. The linguistic expressions used metaphorically must conform to established mappings, or correspondences, between the source and the target. (Kövecses 2002: 9; emphasis added)

In order to understand what is intended by and implied in the metaphoric expression, one has to have an understanding of the two elements: the metaphor, and the systematic set of its correspondences (or the metaphor’s mapping). This is particularly relevant in extended metaphors or in metaphors where the targetsource relationship of inferences and analogical reasoning is not immediately obvious. For example, to understand the metaphor Yugoslavia used to be the Brazil of Europe, one has to know about the history of former Yugoslavia, including the recent Balkan wars, and about the common view of Brazil as a peaceful melting pot of many ethnic groups. Since cognitive metaphors are ubiquitous, automatic, and often communally shared in ordinary language, Lakoff calls them conventional metaphors. By contrast, poetic metaphors are not automatic, though they are typically based on the same mappings as the conventional metaphors; however, they are often original or novel, requiring reflective effort to be understood. For example, upon reading the end of Robert Frost’s 1916 poem The Road Not Taken (“Two roads diverged in a wood and I –/I took the one less travelled by/And that has made all the difference;” Frost 1986: 131), the reader typically assumes that Frost is not literally describing roads in a wood but, by using the primary conceptual metaphor life is a journey, is considering options for how to live life, and then taking the decision to live differently from what is the norm for most people. Barlow, Pollio, and Fine (1977, cited in Lantolf 1999: 42) estimate that the average L1 English speaker uses about 3000 metaphors a week. Since ordinary language users are usually not aware of the metaphors they use, they are not aware

90 | 3 Formation of concepts and plausibility structures of the conceptual source meanings of what they say or write. If individuals were aware of which metaphors they were using, they would become aware of some of the mechanisms through which they construe world, Other, and self, with all its implications: “By recognizing the metaphoric basis of the otherwise real, the way is opened for alternative actions” (Gergen 1999: 67). This opening may be there for L2 learners for whom some metaphors are unfamiliar and who therefore have to reconstruct the metaphorical basis of expressions which are no longer recognized as metaphors by L1 speakers. With regard to their cultural basis and function, there are basically two sets of conceptual metaphors, namely primary conceptual metaphors with universal mapping-attributes (deriving directly from our bodily experience) and secondary (or complex) conceptual metaphors which are culturally charged and which combine different primary metaphors and cultural beliefs or assumptions. Because of the immense complexities involved in mapping from culture- and languagespecific source domains to target domains, it is very difficult to appropriately and comprehensively translate a secondary conceptual metaphor from one language into another. This may be easier with primary conceptual metaphors, as Cameron (2003) points out: “Recent work suggests that some ‘primary conceptual metaphors’ may be so basic to human experience that they occur in all or most cultural contexts, and may serve as foundational to other metaphors (. . . ). For example, many cultures and languages make a correspondence between size and importance: the big man is often the boss or the leader” (Cameron 2003: 20; emphasis in the original). Lakoff and Johnson (1980) closely examined a number of primary conceptual metaphors, for instance, life is a journey, time is money, social organizations are plants, argument is war, love is a journey.⁸ These primary conceptual metaphors are not usually isolated, independent, or single occurrences; they form many complex and systematically organized networks of metaphorical expressions with which people of a speech community talk about domains or topics. For example, aspects of romantic relationships are often expressed using metaphors from the domain of journeys: We are at the beginning of our friendship; We are at a crossroads; We cannot turn back now; I do not think our relationship is going anywhere; We’ll have to go our separate ways. A conceptual domain is any coherent organization of experience. For instance, we have coherently organized knowledge about journeys (in terms of beginning and end, duration, means and ways of traveling, impediments, etc.) so that we can rely on this knowledge

8 The use of small capital letters indicates that the particular wording does not as such occur in language, but it underlies conceptually all the metaphorical expressions referring to it.

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for understanding romantic relationships which may be very complex and unpredictable in their development. Instead of applying unrelated single metaphors, here “we have one metaphor, in which love is conceptualized as a journey. The mapping tells us precisely how love is being conceptualized as a journey. And this unified way of conceptualizing love metaphorically is realized in many different linguistic expressions” (Lakoff 1993: 209; emphasis in the original). Thus, lovers correspond to travelers; their relationship normally has impediments in the way. These correspondences provoke “inference patterns used to reason about travel [which] are also used to reason about love relations” (Lakoff 1993: 209). This is also true for other primary conceptual metaphors such as Life is a journey, Argument is war, Time is money, etc. There are many primary conceptual metaphors which can be effortlessly transferred across cultures; they are related to embodied experiences which are universally similar “because everybody has basically the same kind of bodies and brains and lives in basically the same kinds of environments, so far as the relevant features are concerned” (Lakoff and Johnson 2003: 257). Primary conceptual metaphors share the same bodily source domains and are frequently mapped on to similar targets, as, for example, in the conceptual metaphor of big is important (“The big man said,” “It is a big issue”). Kövecses (2006: 156) suggests that these conceptual metaphors which are shared by several unrelated languages primarily express concepts for emotion, for instance, happiness. In this context, Kövecses (2006: 156) identifies in particular the conceptual metaphors of happiness is up (“I’m feeling up”), happiness is light (“She brightened up”), and happiness is a fluid in a container (“He’s bursting with joy”). In addition, there may be similar conceptual metaphors available in two or more cultures but they may be expressed differently in the respective languages, and the inferences invoked might be different, according to the underlying cultural context of conceptualization and schemata. For instance, the concept of interrogating a suspect with a view of bringing him or her to divulge information is expressed in English by to grill a suspect, but in German by einen Verdächtigen in die Mangel nehmen or ausquetschen, that is, to mangle a suspect or squeeze a suspect in order to get the relevant information. Since both cultures use the general concepts of to grill, to mangle and to squeeze, there is no logical reason why the linguistic metaphors have developed differently; obviously the different paths of development have been caused by the historically evolving mapping-potential of the cultures, aided by similar mappings. As a matter of principle, however, the target domain has to be within conceptual reach of the source domain, and the transfer of levels of meaning must be based on tacit cultural knowledge to such an extent that it constitutes accessible new meaning. In our example, the verbs grill, mangle, and squeeze all point to psychological or physical pain exerted on the suspect.

92 | 3 Formation of concepts and plausibility structures Metaphors cannot be deciphered solely on the basis of linguistic competence; metaphoric interpretation relies also on extralinguistic, culturally specific context-knowledge, such as frames and schemata, in order to find the intended interpretation: “Indeed, the greater the role of its extralinguistic context in determining the content of a metaphor, the more we need to explain why only some and not other interpretations can be expressed by the given expression” (Stern 2000: 13). This situation can lead to a failure to grasp the metaphorical character of an expression. Stern (2000) calls this failure “metaphorical incompetence,” that is, we may not know that some utterance is not to be interpreted literally but not yet know what it is to interpret it metaphorically; say, we do not know that a metaphor depends for its interpretation on a contextual parameter (as opposed, say, to its literal meaning), or on a particular contextual parameter (i.e., presuppositions) different from that which determines whether its content is true (i.e., the actual circumstances). (Stern 2000: 203; emphasis in the original)

Metaphorical incompetence can occur especially in second language usage where the speaker might not have the specific vocabulary and conceptualizations, or does not know the mapping-potential of the culture and language in which the metaphor is expressed. This can lead to the situation described by Stern (2000): “Although he [the second language user] knows that the utterance is not to be interpreted literally, he is in no better position to interpret it metaphorically than he would be with respect to a string that he knows to be in a foreign language but of which he does not know a single word” (Stern 2000: 203–204). But even though lexical and linguistic shortcomings are mainly responsible for metaphorical incompetence in cross-cultural encounters, misunderstandings can also occur due to a lack of knowledge of cultural patterns and linguistic conventions of the other society. Sometimes a L2 speaker knows that an utterance is to be interpreted metaphorically, rather than literally or in some other nonliteral way, without knowing what the metaphorical interpretation is. If, for example, the German well-wish Hals- und Beinbruch (‘I hope you’ll break your neck and your leg’) is understood literally, the recipient of this well-wish may worry why he or she is wished such bad luck. Therefore, in order to use and understand metaphors in another language, it is necessary to have sufficient knowledge of the linguistic structures, tacit cultural patterns, discursive habits, and conceptual imprints that contribute to the generation of meaning in a given culture. Another example of metaphorical incompetence would be the English metaphor to have a finger in every pie which is drastically changed when term pie is replaced by the semantically related expression tart, since the term tart can be

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used ambiguously.⁹ In this case, metaphorical incompetence of the L2 user can be blamed on his or her linguistic or cultural incompetence rather than conceptual deficiencies because it is solely due to lack of knowledge of the metaphorical meaning of the lexical items in question (including connotations). Metaphorical competence, therefore, is closely linked to the ways in which a culture organizes its world conceptually. If conceptual metaphors are such an important and integral part of the everyday use of a given language, a competent L2 learner has to gain access to metaphorical usage from an emic cultural point of view (i.e., a point of view from within the target culture), in that he or she has to acquire a good grasp of the underlying tacit cultural knowledge and possible metaphorical transfers. In order to learn second metaphorical systems, it is necessary to investigate metaphor not only in language, but also in mind. This aspect refers to the socioculturally constituted mind to which access is possible by reconstructing underlying cultural schemata, frames, prototypes and concepts. Therefore, it can be said that competent use of metaphors with their inherent combination of different levels of cultural knowledge poses one of the most difficult problems for second language learners (cf. Section 9.3).

3.5 Linguistic relativity If language, concepts (including categories, schemata, metaphors, prototypes, and frames), and thought are as closely interwoven as suggested in the previous sections, then the structure of a given language might have an impact on habitual thought, if thought is conceived to be linguistically based, as assumed in the previous sections. In being handed down from generation to generation, language provides powerful concepts, categories, frames, and schemata of thought, but at the same time it also constrains our possibilities of thinking. The way we interpret and construct selfhood and worldhood may be affected by the semiotic system we use in relating to, or construing the “external” world. This means that speakers of a particular language could be led to think, construe, perceive, and remember actions, events, experiences, and thoughts in a way peculiar to the patterns, structures, and concepts of this language. Users of different languages, then, will tend

9 A friend who teaches English as a foreign language in London told me the story of how one of his Italian students proudly used the phrase “I have a finger in every tart” to show off his perceived metaphorical competence; he did not understand the storms of laughter generated by his claim. . .

94 | 3 Formation of concepts and plausibility structures to construct the world differently, according to the grammatical and conceptual categories provided by their respective language and culture. Universalists and nativists of the Chomsky school of linguistics have emphatically rejected this claim. They maintain that thought determines language, not the other way around. They argue for the existence of an abstract and prelinguistic language of thought, a lingua mentis, or mentalese (e.g., Fodor 1975, 2008), independent of any of the roughly 6,000 currently existing human languages (cf. Crystal 2002: 3–11); hence, a culturally embedded language cannot have a structuring influence on thought. By direct contrast, the relativistic position recognizes the existing human language as the central medium of reflective thought, which is in turn shaped by culturally imprinted categories of perception and construction, even if an abbreviated form of language is used for inner speech (cf. Section 2.2.3). The notion of a language of thought as a universal system of mental representation is rejected, because mind is a linguistically mediated, sociocultural product which is engaged in sociocultural practice (cf. Section 8.4). Among linguists involved in cognitive or generativist research, the universal position has probably more adherents than the relativist stance. However, recent work on linguistic relativity suggests that the latter position may be more tenable (cf. Odlin 2002: 255; Ahearn 2012). The notion of linguistic relativity is not new. In 1680, the English philosopher John Locke observed that in any language there is a “great store of words (. . . ) which have not any that answer them in another [language]” (Locke 1976: 226, cited in Dirven and Verspoor 1998: 138). The romantic tradition of early 19 th century Germany, particularly the work of Machaelis, Hamann, and Herder, assumed an association between a language of a nation and the “spirit” (German Geist) and the worldview (Weltanschauung) of its speakers. This idea was developed in more detail by Wilhelm von Humboldt, which is evident from the following passage in which Humboldt also touches upon the conceptual relevance of learning a second language: Each tongue draws a circle about the people to whom it belongs, and it is possible to leave this circle by simultaneously entering that of other people. Learning a foreign language ought hence to be the conquest of a new standpoint in the previously prevailing cosmic attitude of the individual. In fact, it is so to a certain extent, inasmuch as every language contains the entire fabric of concepts and the conceptual approach of a portion of humanity. But this achievement is not complete, because one always carries over into a foreign tongue to a greater or lesser degree one’s own cosmic viewpoint – indeed one’s own linguistic pattern. (Humboldt 1971: 39–40)¹⁰

10 Humboldt mentions here the crucial difficulty of second language learning, namely that the subordination of the other linguistic structure and cultural patterns under “one’s own cosmic

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Humboldt suggests that the only escape from the internalized fabric of concepts, as mediated by the L1, is the conquest of a new point of view, i.e., learning a second language. A major problem in L2 learning, however, is the projection of internalized concepts and language which are considered by the monolingual subject as cosmically valid into the second language and culture, with all its distorting implications (cf. Chapter 9). In late 19th century, Franz Boas brought some of these ideas into American anthropology when he emigrated from Germany to the USA. Here, Boas and his disciples encountered indigenous American languages and cultures which differ vastly in terms of linguistic structure and conceptualization from those found in Europe. As a result of analyzing these languages, different both conceptually and grammatically from, for example, English or German, Boas suggests that different languages might embody different conceptual classifications of the world, caused by environmental and cultural influences: “Thus it happens that each language, from the point of view of another language, may be arbitrary in its classifications; that what appears as a single simple idea in one language may be characterized by a series of distinct phonetic groups in another” (Boas 1966: 22). Boas’ student Edward Sapir developed these notions further. In the area of vocabulary alone, the differences between these languages are so significant that Sapir (1949: 27) observes that, “distinctions which seem inevitable to us may be utterly ignored in languages which reflect an entirely different type of culture, while these in turn insist on distinctions which are all but unintelligible to us.” Sapir generalizes this observation to a language at large: “We see and hear and otherwise experience very largely as we do because the language habits of our community predispose certain choices of interpretation. (. . . ) From this standpoint we may think of language as the symbolic guide to culture” (Sapir 1949: 162; emphasis in the original). Even more pointed are the views of Sapir’s student Benjamin Lee Whorf, who worked on indigenous American languages, especially the Uto-Aztecan languages of the South-West of the United States and Mexico. Whorf strengthened the idea of the link between language and thought, as previously developed by Humboldt, Boas, and Sapir, to the concept for which he borrowed Sapir’s term of linguistic relativity in order to evoke connotations to Einstein’s theory of relativity in the field of physics. The main notion of this work has become known as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, or the Whorfian hypothesis, in linguistic and cultural studies, although Sapir and Whorf never co-authored anything, and certainly not any “hypothesis.”

viewpoint” implies the annihilation of the authentic Other. This problem will be discussed in Chapters 8 and 9.

96 | 3 Formation of concepts and plausibility structures Whorf traces this approach back to the beginning of anthropological field work in linguistics because it was only then that the different conceptualizations and structures of widely different languages became apparent. He defines this approach as follows: It was found that the background linguistic system (in other words, the grammar) of each language is not merely a reproducing instrument for voicing ideas but rather is itself the shaper of ideas, the program and guide for the individual’s mental activity, for his analysis of impressions, for his synthesis of his mental stock in trade. Formulation of ideas is not an independent process, strictly rational in the old sense, but is part of a particular grammar, and differs, from slightly to greatly, between different grammars. We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native language. The categories and types that we isolate from the world of phenomena we do not find there because they stare the observer in the face; on the contrary, the world is presented in a kaleidoscopic flux of impressions which has to be organized by our minds – and this means largely by the linguistic systems in our minds. We cut nature up, organize it into concepts, and ascribe significances as we do, largely because we are parties to an agreement to organize it in this way – an agreement that holds throughout our speech community and is codified in the patterns of our language. The agreement is, of course, an implicit and unstated one. BUT ITS TERMS ARE ABSOLUTELY OBLIGATORY; we cannot talk at all except by subscribing to the organization and classification which the agreement decrees. (Whorf 1956: 212–214; italics added; capitals in the original)

Whorf spells out here in very clear terms the basic assumptions of linguistic relativity by asserting that the grammar of each language is the “shaper of ideas,” the “program and guide” for all thinking, and that “we dissect nature along the lines laid down by our native languages.” Hence, we neither talk nor think “except by subscribing to the organization and classification which the [tacit linguistic] agreement decrees.” This suggests that the native language of a person determines the structure and, to a large extent, the possible contents of thought, including the types of ideas and concepts this person is able to develop and to communicate. The structure and conceptualization of language suggest associations that are not necessarily part of “reality” itself which, as Whorf assumes, exists independent of language. It also implies that some thoughts may be possible in one language but not in another. Therefore, a language, through its conceptualizations and its grammatical structure, predisposes people, collectively and subjectively, to construe “reality” through its filter. If this idea that each language implies a unique way of thinking were correct, then it would be very difficult to step outside the categories of our own language and to learn a second language. Whorf based his assumption of linguistic relativity on empirical studies and analyses he had carried out, contrasting conceptualizations of Hopi (as an indigenous American language) with English (as a Standard Average European [SAE] language). He suggests that meanings derived from grammatical systems (for ex-

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ample, from notions of number and space in nouns, or aspect and tense in verbs) are even stronger determinants of thought; whereas word-meaning can be reflected upon, grammatical systems are largely unavailable to conscious reflection. One of the conceptual differences Whorf examined concerns the different notions of time that are encoded in the grammar of the languages and that correspond to distinct cultural conceptualizations. Instead of the English linguistic-temporal conceptualization of the three past tenses (imperfect, perfect, and pluperfect), Hopi, according to Whorf (1956: 57), differentiates conceptually between grammatical categories of events that have or have not manifested themselves in physical reality (for example, spiritual matters or future events), and events that have just begun, i.e., that are on the verge of passing from the unmanifested to the actual. For example, Whorf points out that in English, time is conceptualized as constantly moving yet countable cycles that are treated like tangible objects. Thus, one can think of 10 apples or of 10 hours, yet only apples can be experienced simultaneously as a group of ten. Despite this, English speakers do not find it unusual to think of 10 hours as a group of hours. With this kind of conceptualization, they are following the associated meaning of the structural plural pattern inherent in the English language. Since temporal cycles are conceptually treated like objects, speakers of English are led to ask about the substance of temporal cycles, such as a day, a week, a month, etc. (cf. Lucy 1996: 43). Speakers of other languages may categorize their experiences of time differently due to linguistically inherent concepts and structures. For example, Hopi speakers do not conceptualize these cycles as objects but as recurrent events. They talk of time intervals using ordinary number terms, e.g., instead of saying eight hours, the Hopi say the equivalent of the 9th hour, meaning the 9th manifestation of an hour, hence avoiding “the individual meaning of a group and specif[ying] a succession” (Gibbs 1994: 440). Whorf concludes from his observations that Hopi grammar does not have a clear structure to distinguish the concepts of past, present, and future; he comments: “After long and careful study and analysis, the Hopi language is seen to contain no words, grammatical forms, constructions or expressions that refer directly to what we call ‘time’, or to past, present, or future, or to enduring and lasting (. . . )” (Whorf 1956: 57). Whereas in SAE languages, these aspects of tense can be expressed with the verb structure, in Hopi, according to Whorf, cycles are treated like repeated visits of the “same person,” hence “it is as if the return of the day were felt as the return of the same person, a little older but with all the impresses of yesterday, not ‘another day’, i.e. like an entirely different person” (Whorf 1956: 151). If past events are essentially contained in the present, “there is less incentive to study the past” (Whorf 1956: 153) or to be concerned with detailed recording of past events; this is supported by a tendency to perceive events not as discrete occurrences, but as a part of a continuum which manifests itself in particular

98 | 3 Formation of concepts and plausibility structures events. Whorf concludes that Hopi fails to exhibit a tendency toward historicity comparable to that of SAE languages. In the context of the conceptual metaphor of treating temporal cycles like repeated visits of the “same person,” one can act in the present in order to influence the future, a concept unavailable in SAE languages: One does not alter several men by working upon just one, but one can prepare and so alter the later visits of the same man by working to affect the visit he is making now. This is the way the Hopi deal with the future – by working within a present situation which is expected to carry impresses, both obvious and occult, forward into the future event of interest. (Whorf 1956: 148)

Hopi speakers, according to Whorf, do not experience time in a cyclical manner but rather in a segmented way; instead of length of time, Hopi speakers experience a subjective recognition of a sort of organic growing-later. The Hopi time concept, then, does not allow for abstract Western conceptualizations of scheduling and budgeting; these are activities in the immediate present with presumed future references. In turn, SAE languages do not allow for the conceptualization of time as repeated visits by the “same person” with its inherent notions of the potential for manipulation. The Hopi concept of time appears to flow naturally from the hypothesized underlying view of time as ever-reappearing cycles of what is essentially the same, which are clearly distinctive from Western practices of treating time as a valuable commodity, that is, measuring time in exact numbers and assigning monetary value (“time is money”) to it. Although both cultures and languages most obviously refer to the same phenomenon, they conceptualize time in different metaphorical constructs which, in turn, has an influence on the subjective (and sociocultural) perception of time. Linguistic, spatial, and temporal patterns, then, arise autonomously from our conceptual system, but since they are culturally constructed, linguistically conceptualized, and passed on from one generation to the next, they can subsequently influence how we think. The cultural construction of these foundational metaphors clearly reflects sociocultural experience, for instance, in the time is money metaphor of American English which would be incomprehensible to monolingual Hopi speakers. Whorf concludes his examination of temporal concepts by suggesting: “Concepts of ‘time’ and ‘matter’ are not given in substantially the same form by experience to all men but depend upon the nature of the language or languages through the use of which they have been developed” (Whorf 1956: 158). The validity of Whorf’s observations has been challenged because Whorf apparently translated Native American languages into English in a “simplistic wordby-word” fashion (Garnham and Oakhill 1994: 48), which to a large extent distor-

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ted the intended meaning of what was said. This is particularly true of idiomatic phrases or metaphors which do not make sense in direct translation; when, for example, the English metaphor for heavy rain It is raining cats and dogs is translated literally into German as Es regnet Katzen und Hunde, the monolingual German speaker would be at a complete loss as to its meaning because he or she would understand the utterance in a literal sense (cf. Section 3.4). Similarly, to translate the German proverb Morgenstund hat Gold im Mund literally as morning hour has gold in its mouth would be equally incomprehensible to the English speaker, for whom it would be difficult to infer the meaning of the equivalent English proverb only the early bird catches the worm. Another shortcoming of Whorf’s theory of linguistic relativity is his claim that, if a language has no word for a certain concept, then its speakers would not be able to understand it. However, when the concept is lexicalized in one language but not in another, one can still understand the concept. For example, English speakers who have never heard the German term Schadenfreude will not find it difficult to understand the concept of relishing someone else’s misfortune. Whorf assumes that if a language has no future tense, for instance, its speakers would not be able to grasp the SAE notion of future time. This assumption is clearly not tenable because future tense can be invoked by tense markers. For instance, one can ask, in perfectly correct English, and in the present tense, Are you coming tomorrow?, thus implying the future tense. It is obvious that some of Whorf’s claims about the Hopi language are questionable or plainly wrong. Contrary to Whorf’s claims, it could be shown that Hopi verbs actually do have tense inflection and that spatial metaphors are used in the Hopi language for conceptualizing time (cf. Duranti 1997: 61). However, these shortcomings are relatively marginal, and Whorf’s main hypothesis about different conceptualizations of the same phenomena inherent in the linguistic categories of different languages remains valid.

3.5.1 Strong and weak versions of linguistic relativity Whorf’s writings do not amount to an explicit theory of relativism; rather he provided a “programmatic discussion [of linguistic relativity] based on the analysis of a few selected, interrelated examples” (Lucy 1992: 45). In fact, as Alford (1978: 489, cited in Schultz 1990: 14) points out, there exists no explicit statement of linguistic determinism in Whorf’s publications. There have been many domain centered cross-cultural studies on the perception of color, time, or space in order to study the Whorfian hypothesis. The color studies (e.g. Berlin and Kay 1969; Kay and Maffi 1999; Kay 2005), for example,

100 | 3 Formation of concepts and plausibility structures are based on the fact that some languages have more linguistic labels for basic colors than others, and there are also differences as to the categorization of colors (cf. Lucy 1992: 127–187; MacLaury 2000). Lucy (1996: 45–47) points to several problems with these studies of codability (for example, of color). Although they were originally undertaken to simplify the research process, they fundamentally altered the terms of Whorf’s concern with habitual thought and behavior towards a concern with potential thought and behavior because of three factors. Firstly, they included variables other than linguistic ones; secondly, they explicitly relied on a Western construction of “reality;” and thirdly, they omitted any comparison of languages. A fundamental flaw of these “domain-centered” (Lucy 1997: 298–301) approaches which select a domain of experience (such as color, time, or space) is that the construction of reality is typically drawn from one linguistic and cultural tradition. Thus, it tends to favor the usually metropolitan language and culture from which it arose: “In short, the method used for creating a neutral system based on reality undermines the very possibility of fair comparison in these ways” (Lucy 2004: 6). However, more recent studies of linguistically influenced conceptualizations of domains try to address these problems by taking the conceptualizations of both analyzed languages into consideration on level terms so as to avoid bias towards one of the languages of analysis. For example, research carried out by Melissa Bowerman and Soonja Choi illustrates this point with regard to spatial categories in Korean and English (cf. Choi and Bowerman 1991; Bowerman 1996; Bowerman and Choi 2003). Choi and Bowerman (1991) could show that at the age of 20 months, just when children begin to talk and use linguistic constructs for thought, English-speaking children and Korean-speaking children display quite different conceptions of actions like placing pieces in a puzzle, putting toys into a bag, putting a cap on a pen and putting a hat on a doll’s head. Whereas the Englishspeaking children are clearly guided by the prepositions in and on for their constructions of these acts, the Korean children differentiated between tight in and tight on (kkita) and tight on and loose on (nehta) because they had internalized different linguistically induced concepts for these relations. For example, English speakers would use the preposition in to describe putting an apple in a bowl and a top on a ballpoint pen, but Korean would use nehta for the former and kkita for the latter. These language-related differences had been internalized by children as early as 17–20 months, as Bowerman and Choi (2003: 395) could demonstrate. Bowerman (1996: 169) suggests that the developing minds of children seem to have a high degree of plasticity and are susceptible to “language specific principles of semantic categorization.” One of the results of these experiments was to show that both groups of children construe the relations between objects in the world on the basis of the specific categories inherent in the language they are be-

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ing socialized in, and not on the basis of some universal, conceptual categories, which, universalists claim, exist for all linguistic categories. John Lucy’s studies of the linguistic, conceptual, and consequently cognitive differences between Yucatec Maya and American English also found significant differences in the linguistic treatment of objects in terms of shape and material composition (cf. Lucy 1992; 1996; 2004). In contrast to the above-mentioned domain studies, these studies are “structure-centered” (Lucy 1997: 296–298), in that they select a grammatical structure (for instance, number, gender, or aspect marking), ask about their differences across languages, and how the socially construed “reality” may appear differently from the vantage point of each relevant system. However, as Lucy points out, these studies, although becoming more popular among researchers, are difficult to implement because, “comparing categories across languages requires extensive linguistic work both in terms of local description and typological framing, and it can be extremely difficult to characterize referential entailments suitable for an independent assessment of cognition” (Lucy 2004: 6). On the basis of the results of these more recent structure centered crosscultural studies on the influence of language on thought, there seems to be a consensus for rejecting the strong version of the Whorfian hypothesis, namely that language determines thought (cf. Lucy 1992: 3).¹¹ There is some evidence for the weak version – that language influences thought – but this version is quite vague in that it seems to be more true for some aspects of thought (for example, memory) than for others (for instance, perception). Some research clearly seems to support the cognitive version of the weak Whorfian hypothesis – that a speaker’s language makes some thoughts more difficult (or costly) than they would be in another language. For example, the fact that the Russian language has two terms for blue (goluboy for light blue, and siniy for dark blue) gives Russian speakers an advantage over speakers of languages which do not have this lexical color distinction when asked to discriminate between two closely related shades of blue (cf. Winawer et al. 2007, in Ahearn 2012: 86); when the latter have to make this distinction it is more difficult, as they have to employ more words. One finding of structure-centered research indicates that effects of relativity arise only in middle childhood (cf. Lucy 2004: 20), a crucial period in the develop-

11 Yet some studies are ambiguous about that rejection. Anna Wierzbicka (1997: 7), for example, suggests: “Whorf’s main thesis that we ‘dissect nature along the lines laid down by our native languages’, and that ‘we cut nature up [in ways] codified in the patterns of our language’, contains a profound insight which will be recognized by anybody whose experiential horizon extends significantly beyond the boundaries of his or her native language.”

102 | 3 Formation of concepts and plausibility structures ment and integration of higher levels of language, culture, and mind. This is also the age at which the children begin to lose their mental flexibility in acquiring new languages and are increasingly likely to show interference accents in languages subsequently learned, as Lenneberg (1967) has shown in his research of the sensitive period in language learning: In short, during this age substantive advances in linguistic, cultural, and mental development seem to come hand in hand with tangible limitations in the capacity to acquire or understand other languages and measurable effects of language codes on thought. This pattern suggests an emerging trade-off whereby higher levels of intellectual and social development are purchased by a deeper commitment to the mediating role of language, that is, to a particular language, on whose system of categories will then quietly shape our thought and culture thereafter. (Lucy 2004: 20; emphasis added)

These insights into a complex trade-off in advancing to higher forms of mental functioning and social interaction effectively synthesize the comparative insights of Whorf with the development and psychological insights of Vygotsky (cf. Lucy and Wertsch 1987). Both lines of research suggest that “each child can achieve the fully developed humanity implicit in the inherent capacity of language, culture, and mind only by committing to becoming a particular sort of human, that is, one imbued with a historically specific language, culture, and mind” (Lucy 2004: 21). Thus, there seems to be a direct line of argument from Vygotsky’s research into the increasing interpenetration of language and cognition in the mind of the developing child to Whorf’s suggestion that language, by its structure and conceptualizations, has a certain influence on the potential and structure of thoughts. But whereas Vygotsky’s research is anchored in sociocultural theories and tries to analyze the social and cultural impact on the development of the individual, mediated through the symbolic system of language, Whorf does not accentuate this aspect in his publications. He only touches on this aspect marginally, as in the following passage: His [the human being’s] thinking itself is in a language – in English, in Sanskrit, in Chinese. And every language is a vast pattern-system, different from others, in which are culturally ordained the forms and categories by which the personality not only communicates, but also analyzes nature, notices or neglects types of relationship and phenomena, channels his reasoning, and builds the house of his consciousness. (Whorf 1956: 252)¹²

12 In light of this research Pinker’s claim seems a little arrogant and plainly wrong when he suggests that “there is no scientific evidence that languages dramatically shape their speakers’ ways of thinking. The idea that language shapes thinking seemed plausible when scientists were

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Thus, the conclusion of recent research into linguistic relativity is that Whorf’s assertions that language determines our construals of reality cannot be maintained. Language is not a conceptual prison for our mind in that it does not constrain our potential of thought. However, language influences our train of thought because, “Languages differ essentially in what they must convey and not in what they may convey” (Jakobson 2000: 116; emphasis in the original). Language is a central part of the habitualized sociocultural practice of a cultural community and hence serves to satisfy the needs of its members; the relationship between language, culture and thought is mutually constitutive. Language does not determine our ability to sense the physical world, nor does the first language create models for thinking from which there is no escape. What can be argued, however, is that language predisposes and influences us to think and behave in a certain way, not because of what our language allows us to think, but rather because of what it habitually obliges us to think about (cf. Jakobson 2000: 116). This observation has a complicating effect on the process of learning of a second language. Linguistic and cultural relativity have to be fundamentally taken into account for L2 learning in a twofold manner. Firstly, the linguistic and sociocultural imprints of the learner in terms of worldview and habitus have to be considered because he or she will increasingly question some of the assumed certainties of the taken-for-granted monocultural constructs of self, Other, and world, which will slowly facilitate a subjective intercultural third space (cf. Chapter 6). Secondly, the constructs of the other language and culture cannot be accessed from the dominant position of the first language and culture because they would diminish the other constructs to the point of annihilation. Therefore, linguistic relativity has to be approached and overcome by increasingly developing subjective blended spaces, or third spaces, between the two languages and cultures concerned. From this basis, the constructs of both languages and cultures can be understood in a way that does both traditions of conceptualization justice. However, the development of blended third spaces between the dominant languages, cultures, and discourses takes time, and the development of a high degree of intercultural competence can rarely be achieved in institutional L2 learning contexts (cf. Section 10.2).

in the dark about how thinking works or even how to study it. Now that cognitive scientists know how to think about thinking, there is less of a temptation to equate it with language just because words are more palpable than thoughts” (Pinker 1994: 58).

4 Language and the intersubjective construction of meaning The previous two chapters analyzed the normative imprint of first language grammar, syntax and concepts, categories, and frames on the mind of the subject. It was shown that the subject is not an autonomous person but that he or she is both the product and the producer of his linguistic and conceptual interconnectedness, situatedness, and design. The subject can no longer be conceptualized as the sovereign in his or her environment; rather, his or her self is constituted by language, culture, society, and discourse. Elements derived from these configurations inform the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral activities of the subject and of the cultural community. However, the subject experiences these configurations not as systems but as “small conceptual packets” (Fauconnier and Turner 2002: 40) in a myriad of divergent, amorphous, and transient processes. For example, language is not experienced and used as a linguistic system, but previously internalized elements of language are externalized for the purpose of intersubjective communication. Intersubjective use of language is not completely free and unregulated, but it is constrained by certain structures and patterns, such as genres and discourses which can be specific to a socioculture, but some may in certain instances be cross-culturally valid (cf. Chapter 3). For this reason, they have to play a constructive role in L2 acquisition; ignorance of these frames of intersubjective interaction in a particular language would imply a reduced communicative competence, i.e., the learner as a L2 speaker would not be in a position to interact as appropriate to the implicit norms and patterns of interaction in the second language community. He or she would also not be able to appropriately co-construct knowledge when interacting with others in the L2. In the preceding chapters, it was also shown that the widespread view of communication in terms of one-dimensional transport of meaning from one person to another is misleading and cannot be upheld. The conduit metaphor of communication (cf. Lakoff and Johnson 1980: 11–13; Lakoff 1987: 67–74) tends to assume that meanings exist as object-like entities in the minds of atomistic individuals. In order to communicate these meanings, they are packaged into words in the form of speech or text; the recipient then extracts the meanings from these words, and thus the meanings have been transported from the speaker or writer to the listener or reader. This conduit metaphor of communication is deeply embedded in Western cultures, manifesting itself in expressions such as It is hard to get the idea across to him; I am not getting through to her; I have put my ideas on paper; I did not get anything from that lecture, all implying that ideas and concepts are fully communicable.

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However, the conduit metaphor is wrong on several levels. Firstly, it assumes that meanings are stable; secondly, it implies that meanings are fully communicable; thirdly, it assumes that meanings are properties of language. Furthermore, it ignores the complex interactional processes between the interlocutors, their relations and intentions, their feelings, memories, experiences, and their subjective interpretation of the immediate context of the interaction (including discourse, identity, role, intentions). Yet all these factors are influential in producing meanings which are only activated by language in interaction but are not one-dimensionally determined, a fact that complicates second language learning. In the previous chapters, the close interconnection between first language, thought, and cognitive development was analyzed in terms of conceptualization, abstraction, and categorization. It has been shown that cognitive development is initiated and maintained by intersubjective exchanges, starting with the prelinguistic moves that an infant produces in creative reaction to those made by others. The process of learning to think and (inter-)act involves making discursive moves, modeled on those made by others. These are then modified and adapted for producing one’s own moves, but remain fundamentally dependent on the structures of the practices of others. Therefore, in the process of learning to use language, concepts, frames, plausibility structures, and mental functions, we become increasingly aware of the responses of others and of the modes of our own actions. This recursive principle of action is also maintained in verbal interaction. Face-to-face conversations are constructed spontaneously, jointly, and intersubjectively between individuals, and they play an important role in the general process of constructing meaning, both on individual and social levels. In intersubjective interaction, mental spaces¹ are jointly built and mappings between them are set up in order to construct meaning on the basis of intentions and expressions used; these processes happen at lightning speed, and the interlocutors are usually not consciously aware of them. Thus, notions of individual and society are highly dynamic and ambiguous when used in this context, as both the structure of verbal interaction and the process of constructing meaning are fundamentally shared and spread out between the interlocutors. In addition, verbal interaction usually takes place with certain purposes and objectives which each interlocutor wants to achieve, and is set in a context which may have an influence on the interaction – and vice versa.

1 A mental space can be defined as “a partial conceptual structure that we build up on-line in the course of communication. We set up mental spaces with the help of space-builders” (Kövecses 2006: 267), for example, adverbials of time, modal verbs, adverbs, etc.

106 | 4 Language and the intersubjective construction of meaning Within a cultural community, verbal interaction becomes an important part of the dynamism of the framework of interpretation and of a communal and subjective construction of a socially viable “reality.” This view implies that the mind is not conceived as a Cartesian entity, enshrined in an individual and self-contained subjectivity, but rather as “a meeting point of a wide range of structuring influences whose nature can only be painted on a broader canvas provided by the study of individual organisms” (Harré and Gillet 1994: 22). Hence, the subjective mind is essentially an embodied sociocultural product in which discourses, frames, genres, narratives, and interaction assume a central role. On a higher level than concepts and frames, they structure meaning and shape the way we think and act in certain situations. Berger and Luckmann (1966) stress the importance of verbal interaction for the individual, and thus also the communal construction and maintenance of a coherent “reality,” even if these processes remain largely on a subconscious level: The most important vehicle of reality-maintenance is conversation. One may view the individual’s everyday life in terms of the working away of a conversational apparatus that ongoingly maintains, modifies and reconstructs his subjective reality. (. . . ) It is important to stress, however, that the greater part of reality-maintenance in conversation is implicit, not explicit. Most conversation does not in so many words define the nature of the world. Rather, it takes place against the background of a world that is silently taken for granted. (Berger and Luckmann 1966: 172)

Therefore, conversation enables the subject to constantly construct a viable sense of reality for his or her self in interaction with others. At the same time, conversation co-ordinates these subjective processes of construction with members of a speech community, thus contributing to the formation and maintenance of cohesive and viable constructs of reality on communal and societal levels. These constructs of “reality” are distributed and shared, albeit to subjectively different degrees, among all members of the cultural community in both diachronic and synchronic dimensions. It is exactly this tacitly assumed social and cultural background invoked in interaction that immensely complicates the comprehensive analysis of interaction in its full context. Each person draws on this tacit sociocultural knowledge to different degrees and in different ways; furthermore, every interlocutor construes the underlying social and cultural background knowledge in subjective acts of internalization. Therefore, this tacit knowledge is to some extent subjective but is also to a large extent intersubjectively shared among members of a speech community so that it facilitates the smooth intersubjective construction of meaning in interaction. Because each conversational situation is unique in its details, context, and fabric, the participants have to be able to co-construct the strands of meanings. A precondition for being competent to do so is the ability to

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construct and interpret the context as a recognizable situation type, or as part of discourse, narrative, and genre, and make this spontaneous interpretation reciprocally available to the other interlocutors. However, meaning is a highly dynamic construct which is dependent on the temporal, situational, and (inter-)subjective contexts so that it only gains some degree of stability for the interlocutors at the moment of interaction. Although there have been many approaches to researching this complex phenomenon, no viable overarching theoretical model has yet been developed which could help to explain the complex influences on communication in their impact on the subjective and collective construction of a socially coherent “reality.” However, several approaches have emerged to analyzing the collaborative construal of meaning by language in intersubjective use, as will be discussed in this chapter.

4.1 Word and utterance Vygotsky’s work constitutes one of the early approaches to analyzing the interplay between language and the workings of the mind in verbal interaction. However, Vygotsky focuses his reflections on the word, and not, for example, on the utterance, or the drives of the interlocutors as the central units of constructing and carrying meaning and thus for analyzing mental functions (cf. Wertsch 1985: 132– 157, 194–208). Vygotsky assumes that, “Consciousness is reflected in the word as the sun in a drop of water. The word relates to consciousness as a living cell relates to a whole organism, as an atom relates to the universe. A word is a microcosm of human consciousness” (Vygotsky 1986: 256). But Vygotsky does not conceptualize the word as the carrier of a unit of stable sense; on the contrary, he clearly accentuates the fuzziness of the meaning of a word, depending on the social usage of that word in a particular conversation: “A word acquires its sense from the context in which it appears; in different contexts, it changes its sense. Meaning remains stable throughout the changes of sense. The dictionary meaning of a word is no more than a stone in the edifice of sense, no more than a potentiality that finds diversified realization in speech” (Vygotsky 1986: 245). The word has a relatively stable socially-derived meaning which can be defined in dictionaries and reference works. However, in actual language use the word has sense for the subject, which can be influenced by subjective connotations, memories, emotions, and desires. In these deliberations, Vygotsky does not take into consideration the fact that the word alone is only a part of the complex semiotic mediation of mental functioning; it is not itself a unit of mental functioning. Therefore, Vygotsky’s focus on the word as a unit of analysis prevented him from recognizing that sense

108 | 4 Language and the intersubjective construction of meaning is also “governed by the semiotic property of voices and their interanimation” (Wertsch 1985: 229). By contrast, Wittgenstein emphasizes the notion that words in isolation carry no definite meaning; words, and hence meaning, are dependent on the way they are used within the linguistic system, or the language game.² According to Wittgenstein, words acquire their meaning in the same way that figures do in a game of chess (cf. Wittgenstein 1953: § 31). Without knowing the rules of the game, chess figures are meaningless. Knowing the rules, however, the players can even replace certain figures (which might have gone missing) with other objects, such as matches or corks, as long as all players agree on their symbolic value. Each piece in the chess set acquires its meaning only from the game as a whole. Wittgenstein sees the isolated word in the same position: without the rules of the game of language, it is meaningless. “The question ‘What is a word really?’ is analogous to ‘What is a piece in chess?”’ (Wittgenstein 1953: § 108). Words, then, gain their particular meaning only by their use within a particular language game. Consequently, meaning is generated through verbal interchange and is only given to words in a specific context; universally, there exists no definite or fixed meaning of a word as an object of mind. According to Wittgenstein, there cannot be a fixed or stable meaning of the word, or any other sign, independent of its context of use. There are always multiple construals of word meaning possible in any given situation, and the subject construes meaning for a given specific spatiotemporal situation within the broader framework of the language game. The word, the syntax, the language, the discourse, the discursive positionings of the self and the other interactants, his or her subjective intentions, goals, and expectations, the discursive history of interlocutors, their subjective and joint experiences are all factors influencing the language game.³ This means that language, conceptualization, categorization and their actual usage are engaged in continuous interplay and interanimation; the meaning of a word is subtly altered in each new context of usage, and new words may be coined at any time. For example, in English the neologism to underwhelm was coined as the semantic opposite of to overwhelm, as in I was underwhelmed by his performance. However, the process of creating an antonym of the corresponding

2 For a definition of “language game,” cf. Section 5.1.1. 3 A position in discourse establishes a set of rights, duties, and obligations for the speaker, particularly with respect to the illocutionary or social force of what may be said (cf. Harré and Gillet 1994: 35). Discourse positions the subject as much as the subject positions his or her self in discourse (cf. Section 4.5). The notion of social positioning is similar to that of dramaturgical “role” but it emphasizes the dynamic and multi-layered characteristic more, and allows the subject more choice in their position within social discourse.

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term did not take place in other languages; for instance, there exists in German the verb überwältigen (‘to overwhelm’) but no concept (yet?) of unterwältigen (‘to underwhelm’). More complex neologisms have been introduced by literary and poetic authors, for instance, by James Joyce in Finnegans Wake, by Lewis Carroll in Alice in Wonderland, or by Arno Schmidt in Zettels Traum and Raoul Hausmann in Hyle, to mention but a few novelists writing in English or German. However, these neologisms only have validity within the specific language game of that particular literary work; they have not found their way into ordinary everyday language. Thus, linguistic items only have meaning allocated to them within the rules and practices of the specific language game; this kind of meaning cannot be transferred to another language game because it follows different rules. These examples clearly show that the lexical item of the word alone is simply too arbitrary and variable a notion to be meaningfully imposed on concepts. Concepts and words do not exist in isolation but are produced and organized within conceptual and linguistic structures. Concepts can only make sense, not so much in the expression of the single atomistic word, but in distinction to other concepts and signs, in the context of the linguistic expression and in relation to a largerscaled network of conceptual information. Words and morphemes as signs can be applied in a multitude of ways but they do not have the potential to dictate per se the right way to use them. They can merely point to meanings or concepts but they do not contain them. Therefore, Vygotsky’s focus on the word as the unit of analysis in his reflections on the relationship between speaking and thinking, or language and thought, is obviously too reductive. Clearly, a broader unit of analysis is required in order to provide a more viable account of the relation between language and concepts in the context of the social production of meaning. Similar to Wittgenstein, but coming from a literary angle, the Russian philosopher and literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin focuses on analyzing speech units larger than the word for the construction of meaning. While Vygotsky stresses the importance of speech, and particularly the word, for human cognitive growth, his sociocultural theory does not take into consideration the characteristics of speech as a combination of words embedded in a given interactive context. Thus, Vygotsky’s approach lacks important elements in the production and construction of meaning that go beyond the unit of the word. As Wertsch (1991) suggests, this gap is filled by the work of Vygotsky’s contemporary, Mikhail Bakhtin, who emphasizes the importance of the larger and more complex linguistic notion of the utterance as a comprehensive unit for communication and for the construction of meaning. A major function of language is its intersubjective use for the purpose of communication. Therefore, it is not only a semiotic system but is fraught with subjective intentions, memories, feelings, etc. in its intersubjective use. The study of isolated words, therefore, would be a reductive exercise because, according

110 | 4 Language and the intersubjective construction of meaning to Bakhtin: “The study of a word as such, ignoring the impulse that reaches out beyond it, is just as senseless as to study psychological experience outside the context of that real life toward which it is directed and by which it is determined” (Bakhtin 1981: 292). A word can only be used by a speaker in a meaningful manner in an utterance constructed to convey intended meaning to others. However, the word is hardly ever used as a single item but is always contextualized by speech and by the socialsubjective setting of interaction in synchronic and diachronic dimensions: [N]o living word relates to its object in a singular way: between the word and its object, between the word and the speaking subject, there exists an elastic environment of other, alien words about the same object, the same theme, and this is an environment that it is often difficult to penetrate. It is precisely in the process of living interaction with this specific environment that the word may be individualized and given specific shape. Indeed, any concrete discourse (utterance) finds the object at which it was directed already as it were overlain with qualifications, open to dispute, charged with value, already enveloped in an obscuring mist – or, on the contrary, by the “light” of alien words that have already been spoken about it. (Bakhtin 1981: 276, emphasis in the original)

In this statement, Bakhtin emphasizes the “elastic environment” of words used by speakers in utterances relating to particular topics; it is elastic because one could have chosen other words to express something similar, albeit with slight differences in meaning. He also stresses the living interaction in which the word is used by a speaker. Clearly, the speaker selects the words in utterances in order to construct particular meaning for specific purposes. The selection process is influenced by many factors, for example, the genre in which it is set, the level of knowledge and competence of the speaker with regard to the field of words relating to the topic in question, and the knowledge of the history of the discourse in terms of what has been said and left unsaid (Bakhtin’s notion of “alien words”). Bakhtin attaches particular significance to the voices of others in a historical dimension which have the power to guide the mind of the interlocutors with regard to what is being spoken about. If this diachronic link to the words spoken by others about the topic were not there, it would be much more difficult for the interlocutors to negotiate for the meaning of the utterance because they would neither be familiar with the potential thematic value judgments inherent in the utterances nor with the potentially divergent voices. Bakhtin considers the notion of utterance – in contrast to more abstract concepts such as the word or the sentence which have been emphasized by Vygotsky and Saussure – to be “a real unit of speech communication” (Bakhtin 1986: 67; emphasis in the original), reflecting a real speech situation and a real speech activity, set in a specific socio-pragmatic context. This definition stands in explicit

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contrast to Saussure’s and Chomsky’s fictional speech situation of ideal speakers and listeners, and implies that not only are the participants in this speech-activity conceptualized as real but the utterance has the “quality of being directed or addressed to someone,” or “addressivity” (Bakhtin 1986: 99). “The word in living conversation is directly, blatantly, oriented toward a future answer-word: it provokes an answer, anticipates it and structures itself in the answer’s direction” (Bakhtin 1981: 280; emphasis added). Thus, the word in conversation is populated by subjective sense in the way it is actually used in the present, but forward-looking by provoking and structuring the answer of the other interloctutor(s). Bakhtin’s notion of utterance involves speaker, listener, and a third party, namely “the superaddressee (. . . ), whose absolutely just responsive understanding is presumed” (Bakhtin 1986: 126). Like God or absolute truth, the hypothetical superaddressee fully understands the subjective intention and meaning of the utterance. Hence, the superaddressee comes close to the ideal speaker-listener, but in contrast to Saussure’s and Chomsky’s constructs, he or she is only implied in Bakhtin’s model. In producing utterances, the superaddressee is a necessary fictitious element because identical one-to-one understanding is impossible to achieve in interaction, yet the speaker typically assumes that his or her utterance will be fully received in the way he or she intended. In comparison to Vygotsky and Saussure, Bakhtin’s notion of utterance is extended in two important dimensions: the characteristics of addressivity and of responsiveness. Therefore, Bakhtin goes beyond Vygotsky’s focus on the word, and he also extends Saussure’s notion of parole which Saussure considered to be an individualistic verbal performance without social dimensions.⁴ For Bakhtin, by contrast, “the structure of the utterance is a purely sociological (social) structure” (Bakhtin and Volosinov 1973: 98). According to Bakhtin, the utterance carries with it many voices in social and historical dimensions: “The living utterance, having taken meaning and shape at a particular historical moment in a socially specific environment, cannot fail to brush up against thousands of living dialogic threads, woven by socio-ideological consciousness around the given object of an utterance; it cannot fail to become

4 Whereas langue refers to the system or structure of language, parole is the realization of the system in actual speech within a given situation, at a given time, and in a given place. Saussure explains this differentiation with an analogy to the symphony in music. “Language is comparable to a symphony in that what the symphony actually is stands completely apart from how it is performed; the mistakes that musicians make in playing the symphony do not compromise this fact” (Saussure 1974: 18). Langue is like the score of a symphony, which is permanent and neverchanging; parole is like the individual performances of a symphony which vary every time it is played.

112 | 4 Language and the intersubjective construction of meaning an active participant in social dialogue” (Bakhtin 1981: 276). Since utterances carry with them the voices and meanings of others, they are fundamentally a product of the living interaction of social forces, including in a historical dimension. Heteroglossia (raznorecie, literally ‘multi-speechedness’) and polyphony (‘many-voicedness’) are the foundational conditions “governing the operation of meaning in any utterance” (Holquist 1981: 428).⁵ Heteroglossia finds its expression in sequences of concrete utterances, understood not only as part of interaction on a synchronic level, but containing elements of voices of others in a diachronic dimension: “The authentic environment of an utterance in which it lives and takes shape, is dialogized heteroglossia, anonymous and social as language, but simultaneously concrete, filled with specific content and accented as an individual utterance” (Bakhtin 1981: 272). It is the utterance that has the authority over the speaker who just accentuates some of the many diachronic voices inherent in language and directs it towards the utterances of others in dialogue. The concept of heteroglossia refers to a situation where “all utterances are heteroglot in that they are a function of a matrix of forces practically impossible to recoup, and therefore impossible to resolve” (Holquist 1981: 428). Heteroglossia is located at the intersection of centripetal and centrifugal forces in a language. Whereas centripetal forces tend to pull language towards the unitary center provided by the notion of a national language, centrifugal forces pull towards the various sub-languages (e.g., dialects, sociolects) which actually constitute the apparent but false unity of a national language. Bakhtin’s concept of heteroglossia alludes to the multiplicity of actual languages which are at any time spoken by the speakers of any language, for example, the “languages of social groups and classes, of professional groups, of generations, the different languages for different occasions that speakers adopt even within these broader distinctions” (Dentith 1995: 35). At one extreme, heteroglossia can render interaction mutually unintelligible, while at the other end it can allude to popular slogans, or ways of speaking. This implies that when individuals are engaged in interaction, they cannot be seen as carriers of autonomous subjective voices but as agents whose utterances and constructs of self, Other, and others, carry the voices and intentions of others, but are adopted by the subject for particular communicative purposes. Bakhtin (1986) explains the notion of heteroglossia in interactions by pointing out that,

5 By “other-languagedness,” Bakhtin does not refer to foreign languages. Rather, heteroglossia refers to the ideologies inherent in various languages and ideologies of different genres (cf. Section 4.1).

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any word exists for the speaker in three aspects: as a neutral word of a language, belonging to nobody; as an other’s word, which belongs to another person and is filled with echoes of the other’s utterance; and finally, as my word, for, since I am dealing with it in a particular situation, with a particular speech plan, it is already imbued with my expression. (Bakhtin 1986: 88; emphasis in the original)

These different qualities of language become engaged on many levels in interaction; whereas it is already difficult to pin down the subjective voice in the individual utterances (i.e., analyzing the voices of others inherent in the subjective voice), it is impossible to reduce the involvement in interaction strictly to the subjective voices of the interlocutors. The relevance of Bakhtin’s notion of utterance lies in stressing the use of linguistic symbols as a social act. Language is used in a perspective fashion in intersubjective interaction involving two or more interlocutors. Hence, the utterance is not the property of the speaker alone: it carries with it fragments from a diverse sociocultural heritage as well as significance derived from its actual context and content of usage since “speech can exist in reality only in the form of concrete utterances of individual speaking people” (Bakhtin 1986: 71); the utterance is embedded and fraught with subjective sense. Bakhtin explains the difference between a purely linguistic approach towards the utterance and his more inclusive social approach: “The linguistic significance of a given utterance is understood against the background of language, while its actual meaning is understood against the background of other concrete utterances on the same theme, a background made up of contradictory opinions, points of view and value judgments” (Bakhtin 1981: 280). Thus, the utterance is interanimated and contextualized on several levels, namely by the textual placement (utterances that precede and follow), by the specific communicative objectives of the speakers (the force of the utterance), the motivations and expectations of the interlocutors, their method of formulating speech (voice, pitch, intonation, etc.), and the pragmatic conditions in which the utterances are produced (including the utterances themselves which produce elements of the context during the process of interaction). All of these contextualizing elements have a contributing influence on the co-construction of meaning by the interlocutors, which occurs jointly but at the same time subjectively; these contextualizing elements are not static and monolithic, but highly dynamic and flexible. For L2 learners it is very difficult to gain an understanding of other voices inherent in the L2 utterance because they are not familiar with the sociocultural traditions and developments which inform these other voices. However, for an appropriate construction of the Other, this knowledge and the ability to identify at least the most relevant of these voices is indispensable.

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4.2 Speech genre Intersubjective communication does not take place in a vacuum; the social context often has a structuring influence on interaction. Since the language used in interaction also reflects the genre in which it is set, one can differentiate between speech genre (e.g., style, content, composition, register, etc.) and genre in the broader sociocultural setting (e.g., discourse, routinized habits, patterns of doing things, etc.). The use of language “can in no way be regarded as a completely free combination of forms of language, as is supposed, for example, by Saussure” (Bakhtin 1986: 81; emphasis in the original), but it is structured along certain speech genres. Speech situations are not always completely novel since some of the contextualizing factors in particular genres of communication, such as, for instance, the workplace, the tennis club, the supermarket, or the military, have developed into relatively standardized types of utterances. These communication-contexts influence the “thematic content, style, and compositional structure [which] are inseparably linked to the whole of the utterance and are equally determined by the specific nature of the particular sphere of communication. Each separate utterance is individual, of course, but each sphere in which language is used develops its own relatively stable types of utterances. These we may call speech genres” (Bakhtin 1986: 60; emphasis in the original). The habitualized form of language used in certain contexts, or the speech genre, becomes recognizable and predictable for the interactants; it provides the structure and pattern that glue the utterances together in a coherent and recognizable manner. The fact that every utterance is tied to a particular speech genre facilitates a smooth intersubjective understanding of the potentially heterogeneous utterance: We learn to cast our speech in generic forms and, when hearing others’ speech, we guess its genre from the very first words; we predict a certain length (. . . ) and a certain compositional structure; we foresee the need, that is, from the very beginning we have a sense of the speech whole, which is only later differentiated during the speech process. (Bakhtin 1986: 79)

Thus, speech genres have a fundamentally stabilizing effect on the communicative use of language in generic speech situations. A speech genre, therefore, is a certain communicative style and composition, oriented to the production and reception of a particular kind of utterance or text within particular historically-derived socio-communicative or discursive conventions. When an utterance is assimilated into a specific speech genre, the process by which it is produced and interpreted is mediated through its intertextual relationship with prior texts or utterances. When using a generic linguistic framing device such as the phrases Once upon

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a time or Now I raise my glass, a respective set of expectations is triggered concerning the unfolding of the subsequent discourse which, for the two examples given, relates to a fairy tale and to the act of toasting someone (or something) in celebration. These expectations constitute a framework for endowing discourse with textual properties such as internal cohesion, coherence, and boundedness. Speech genres are an integral part of social practices; social practices both reflect and help to produce the macro-level complexes of language, knowledge, and power (referred to by Foucault as discourses; cf. Section 4.5), which organize how people act, think, and understand. Since every utterance is “shaped and developed within a certain generic form” (Bakhtin 1986: 78), the meaning of utterances and words is not fundamentally under the control of the speaker, because he or she has to adhere to the requirements of the genre. The speaker needs competent others to co-construct meaning in a reciprocal process of interanimation. The framework for this kind of co-construction of meaning is provided by the genre which indexes prior situational contexts (for instance, settings, scenarios, objectives, or participant roles); these in turn generate a certain set of expectations for the unfolding of the speech event (or text). Thus, people learn to cast their speech in generic forms which, apart from the content, makes the genre, the approximate length of the speech and its composition predictable for others (cf. Bakhtin 1986: 79). Conversational units are always contextualized in speech genres, on that basis facilitating a smooth interactional process between interlocutors, if they are familiar with the speech genre (which normally is the case if interactants share the same language and tacit cultural knowledge). However, speech genres only operate as a set of conventional guidelines for the production and reception of discourse; they are informative but not necessarily determinative for the co-construction of meaning in speech or text, because emergent circumstances and agendas of the immediate contextualization process of the speech event or of the reception of written text inevitably enter the discursive process. Thus, meaning is by no means fixed by a particular speech genre; it is subject to continuous re-negotiation, albeit in the framework of structured configurations of conventional thematic knowledge. This is why Bakhtin (1986: 60) uses the expression “relatively stable” for characterizing speech genres; there are generic conventions for interaction and construction in particular situations, but these are at the same time open to negotiation on a micro-level (between interactants), and to change on a macro-level (e.g., in the speech community). The relativity of stability of speech genres makes them much more difficult to recognize, predict, and use for L2 learners because of the practical differences in speech genres, based on their sociocultural development. While some speech genres may be very similar across cultures, for example, the professional speech of bankers,

116 | 4 Language and the intersubjective construction of meaning car mechanics, or teachers, others can be highly specific to a culture, such as the speech genres around juju (‘black magic’) in West Africa, or of dog parlors in Western countries.

4.3 Genre The notion of genre can be expanded from the narrower linguistic understanding of speech genre to larger socio-interactional formations such as discourses and genres of activities. Genre in this wider sense has developed historically in a specific sociocultural and linguistic context by establishing certain patterns of organizing speech, text, and activity. These are linked to particular types of situational restraints which have an influence on shaping a particular pattern of interaction. For example, Jauss (1982: 80, cited in Frow 2005: 70) emphasizes the socio-historical dimension of literary genres which he understands to be “groups or historical families. As such, they cannot be deduced or defined, but only historically determined, delimited, and described.” While genre is shaped by the sociocultural, situational, and linguistic context in a diachronic dimension, it has a shaping and structuring influence on linguistic and social actions, and on “meaning and value at the level of text for certain strategic ends; it produces effects of truth and authority that are specific to it, and projects a ‘world’ that is generically specific” (Frow 2005: 73). Therefore, genres contribute to imposing a structure on an otherwise chaotic social world; they facilitate, and at the same time restrain, the production and interpretation of meaning for people in interaction. It is important to note, however, that genres are by no means universal. Whereas some genres transcend the boundaries of cultures, especially in the domains of economics, law, and finance, others are highly dependent on the cultural context in which they were created. For instance, the literary genre of Haiku only exists in the Japanese culture; although many translations of Haiku have been produced, it cannot be translated appropriately into Western languages and cultures, according to Roland Barthes (1981), since the oneness of word and sense would go amiss in the process of reception. Barthes maintains that the Western tendency of ascribing meaning to everything goes contrary to the function of Haiku, which is the momentary stimulation of a spark of truth (cf. Barthes 1981: 65; Krusche 1984). Genres help people to structure not only their verbal behavior in the immediate communicative acts, but also, and more importantly, their activities and knowledge of the social world. Because of this structuring function, genres demand certain behavioral and speech requirements by the interactants. Therefore, genres have to be acquired contextually in the process of socialization

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in which children learn about the socially sanctioned organization of knowledge and the inherent differences; they learn in which genres to use specific registers and how to interact in particular ways with particular people in particular circumstances. This tacit knowledge of genres is to a large extent acquired in primary socialization. It is expanded and made partially explicit in secondary education in that children learn at school “about the socially sanctioned division of knowledge and the generic differences and the differences of value accompanying it” (Frow 2005: 140). In learning about literature at school, for example, pupils are taught the differences between drama, novel, and poem as specific organizations of texts; subsequently, children can make elaborate forms of meta-commentary on these genres. An integral part of schooling is the sitting of tests and examinations. Through this process, children also learn about genres, such as essay writing, classroom discussions, multiple choice tests, etc. Thus, formal schooling reinforces and expands their knowledge of genres by purposely facilitating certain ways of working, (inter-) acting, and thinking which are socially sanctioned. Schooling then, streamlines the knowledge of genre as a way of ensuring the smooth use of genre by individuals in adulthood, and it also contributes to the social maintenance of specific genres in culture. When speech is used in genres, it frequently results in using register, since register is associated with particular social practices and with the people who engage in them. The use of register in such situations conveys to members of the speech community that an identifiable social practice is linked to this specific occasion of language use; it also signals the degree of sociolinguistic competence of the speaker, for example, in terms of familiarity with a professional genre, such as banking. However, not all members of a language community have equal access to registers during socialization and in later life. Thus, competence in register and genre, understood as the linkage of linguistic repertoires and social practices, can result in the creation and maintenance of social boundaries within society, since language users are separated into distinct groups through differential access to particular registers and to the social practices they mediate, including the ascription of social value. The attention to larger units of contexts for speech production has the potential to question the normally assumed cross-contextual and cross-cultural validity of speech acts, such as thanking, promising, or praising. It also extends to the interpretation and construction of the immediate context of interaction which is usually performed on the basis of sociocultural patterns, such as genre. Context in this sense is not a fixed set of variables, but both context and interaction are characterized by “a mutually reflexive relationship to each other, with talk, and the interpretative work it generates, shaping context as much as context shapes

118 | 4 Language and the intersubjective construction of meaning thought” (Goodwin and Duranti 1992: 31). Context in this broad sense relies heavily on a specific form of language with its inherent conceptualizations, connotations, and inferences and relies on a specific sociocultural basis with its genres, schemata, discourses, patterns of interpretation, and construction. In a narrower sense, interactional context is, of course, specific to the immediate situations, motivations, intentions, and competences of the interactants, and to the psychological and communicative interplay between the communicants. In this complex interplay, previous discourse plays a central role, as Briggs and Bauman point out, “genre is quintessentially intertextual. When discourse is linked to a particular genre, the process by which it is produced and received is mediated through its relationship with prior discourse. Unlike most examples of reported speech, however, the link is not made to isolated utterances, but to generalised or abstracted models of discourse and reception” (Briggs and Bauman 1992: 147, cited in Frow 2005: 48). People who have known each other for a long time and over many interactions, for example, can effortlessly frame previously made experiences or co-constructed meaning as part of their interaction. In professional discourse, this kind of discursive link is established by the requirements of the profession, for instance, academic, medical, or trade (and its specializations). Thus, genre is much more than a mere stylistic device applied to texts such as drama, novel, or poem: Genres create effects of reality and truth, authority and plausibility, which are central to the different ways the world is understood in the writing of history or of philosophy or of science, or in painting, or in everyday talk. These effects are not, however, fixed and stable, since texts – even the simplest and most formulaic – do not “belong” to genres but are, rather, uses of them; they refer not to “a” genre but to a field or economy of genres, and their complexity derives from the complexity of that relation. (Frow 2005: 2)

Thus, genres help to structure subjective and collective constructs of self, Other, and others. However, they are not prescriptive in the sense of laying out rules of (interactive) behavior; they only offer principles of construction and activity which help people to understand and position themselves in the social world. Genres are frequently used in everyday life to an extent that they become habitualized, and individuals are no longer aware when, how, and what kind of genre they are using: Through routine use, genres become natural themselves, that is, they become so familiar as to be taken for granted. Their special features are invisible to actors who experience the world through them. Through habituation and infused with the authority of agents, genres can make certain ways of thinking and experiencing so routine as to appear natural. (Hanks 1996: 246, cited in Kramsch 2009a: 123)

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The competence to use genre as a specific pattern of organization for all kinds of semiotic materials, and awareness of its possibilities and constraints, are fundamental forms of sociocultural knowledge mediated in socialization; without tacit and automated knowledge and use of genres, one cannot acquire the status of a full member of a speech community. Thus, knowledge of genres and the ability to move within genres is also relevant for L2 learners. Without this knowledge, L2 learners would not be in a position to fully contextualize their (and others’) L2 speech and activities in social settings. However, genres are not universally the same across cultures and languages. Hence, the encounter of a person from another cultural and speech community can be structurally supported and facilitated if genres are the same or similar across the two cultures. If, however, they are not comparable, this anachronistic situation may provoke reflection on the nature of genre which is typically habitualized and thus subconsciously used.

4.4 Narrative Genres are culturally developed and socio-historically transmitted ways of organizing knowledge and experience. Usually, we use language in several genres every day of our lives, for example, in patient-doctor conversations, church services, job interviews, classroom talk, chitchat with neighbors, etc. Therefore, genres have consistent functions within established communities and carry implicit knowledge about the structure of communication and the roles of interlocutors. Many genres rely on narratives for their structural and content-related composition. Narratives store shared knowledge and beliefs in communities and societies, and serve as an essential source for cultural learning: “[Narrative] analysis involves explaining psychological phenomena as meanings that are ordered from some theoretical perspective, like that of a storyteller, and consist of information and comments on the significance of that information” (Daiute 2004: x). Narratives can be important parts of genres and discourses as they may be necessary to explain specific problems that have a certain history. Narratives also function as a means for the reconstruction of events that “can fill the gap between two apparently unrelated events and, in the process, make sense out of nonsense” (Spence 1982: 21, cited in Daiute 2004: 112). Furthermore, telling one’s own story is an act of discursive and social positioning and of presenting oneself in ways that conform to cultural ideals, including constructing a coherent identity for oneself and for others (cf. Chapter 6). However, the narrative is not identical with the story, as the latter is a sequence of events, whereas the former recounts these events, thereby intentionally emphasizing or adding some aspects, and neglecting or omitting others in order to fit the perspective and intentions of the narrator.

120 | 4 Language and the intersubjective construction of meaning Narratives therefore shape the series of events, or the story of events, according to the effects the narrator wants to achieve by the narration. This is also true for major sociocultural narratives in which sociocultural norms and individual reasons are co-articulated in a normative format so as to maintain sociocultural norms. Fairy tales and folk tales, for example, serve to instill the ethics of socially acceptable behavior in children in terms of being able to appropriately engage with a world imbued with conventionality and normativity. These narratives contain prototypes of shared practice for the process of attributing reasons for actions, and the norms for regulating such actions by exemplifying positive or negative consequences for the actor. Written narratives enable readers to participate vicariously in the thoughtprocesses of the writer, be it directly, or through fictional figures. Narratives provide a contextualized and cohesive account of aspects of human life that are reduced in their natural complexity and inscrutability (this fact makes narratives relevant in L2 learning; cf. Section 10.2). They therefore offer ways of making sense of certain situations that the reader or listener can then use in a subjectively modified fashion as a blueprint for guidance of action and interpretation in similar situations or events in his or her own life. Narratives typically require more than just one person; therefore, they should be “defined as co-construction within a context, involving at least two people. If the time, place, or actor is shifted, the nature of the narrative is also vulnerable to change” (Gergen 2004: 279). Since narratives foster an easier understanding of complex constructs by reducing their complexities and combining them into comprehensible stories, they assume relevance for personal constructs of selfhood and worldhood (cf. Chapter 6). They are more subjective and more open to change than stereotypes. Bruner (1996: 130–149) suggests that narratives, in the form of stories which people hear or read, provide them with “an idea about human encounters, assumptions about whether protagonists understand each other, preconceptions about normative standards” (Bruner 1996: 130). Therefore, narratives have the potential to foster easy intra- and intercultural understanding of certain aspects of life in terms of what is considered to be expected and “normal” (cf. Section 8.4). The hugely reduced complexity of reality inherent in narratives allows for the smooth presentation of particular problems in a schematic and easily understandable manner. The actions of protagonists in narratives are motivated by beliefs, desires, ambitions, values, or “intentional states” (Bruner 1996: 136), even when they are presented in anti-narrative fiction. Narratives also serve the function of dealing with conflicts and violations of norms because they show how protagonists deal with these. The function of narratives in this sense is to instill a sense of accepted normality in the reader or listener, including the norms of possible worlds. Narratives and stories lend themselves to help us live with

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contingencies, conflicts and violations of norms, not only because of their ability to reduce complexities, but also due to their potential to be more easily memorized than abstract theoretical analyses because the structure and the scheme of narratives with their plots and conflicts tie in with our knowledge of genre. In this way, we are getting involved in storied worlds. Narratives can be defined as falling into genres, understood as a particular type of meta-story (for instance, bad boy woos nice girl, or power corrupts). Narratives as genres, then, are textual constructs with a particular plot and a specific structure (for example, fairy tales, detective stories, dramas, comedies). As such, they provide us with ways of making sense of the events presented in a particular narrative. On the basis of the inherent rules and devices of the narrative, based on cultural patterns, and interwoven with our own experiences, we then create our own, personal accounts of reality as our contribution to a storied world. Narratives tend to have certain structural features such as an introduction, permission to speak, main body of narration, and a conclusion; these must be indicated in intervals to the audience so that they have an understanding of where the narrative stands at any point in the interaction because in narrative, “experience is literally talked into meaningfulness. In this sense of narrative, cultural models orchestrate the rules of conversation – such as turn taking, topic control, and speech styles – but not necessarily the content of the narrative” (Shore 1996: 58). These structural features, based on cultural models, can vary between cultures, as they are, like genres, socio-historically evolved and culturally situated. However, the superordinate genre (e.g. bad bay woos nice girl) generates a frame which can be narratively filled in many ways, be it intra- or inter-culturally.

4.5 Discourse and positioning The term discourse is originally a linguistic concept, referring to verbal utterances of greater magnitude than the sentence. The linguistic discipline of discourse analysis, for example, is not so much concerned with utterances by speakers, but with turn-taking in the interaction between two or more speakers. Its main focus lies in reconstructing the linguistic rules and conventions that govern such discourses in their particular contexts. However, there exists a much broader concept of discourse. It has been taken by post-structuralism and semiotics from this original linguistic realm and transferred to historical, social, political, and cultural levels in an attempt to find an analytical framework in the enterprise of fixing certain meanings and their constant reproduction and circulation within established forms of speech, forms of representation, and, in particular, institutional settings. Discourses in this

122 | 4 Language and the intersubjective construction of meaning broader sense are the product of social, historical, and institutional formations, and they contribute in a substantial way to the social and cultural process of making and reproducing meaning. Discourses are understood as systems of construction, containing ideas, utterances, attitudes, beliefs, and plausibility structures that systematically construct and form the subjects and the subject matter of their discursive worlds. Gee (2005) introduces a useful distinction between the two levels of discourse, linguistic and social, that will be adopted for this book: Such socially accepted associations among ways of using language, of thinking, valuing, acting, and interacting, in the “right” places and at the “right” times with the “right” objects (associations that can be used to identify oneself as a member of a socially meaningful group or “social network”), I will refer to as “Discourses”, with a capital “D” (. . . ). I will reserve the word “discourse”, with a small “d”, to mean language-in-use or stretches of language (like conversations or stories). “Big D” Discourses are always language plus “other stuff”. (Gee 2005: 26; emphasis in the original)

Within certain parameters (speech genres, social conventions, institutions, narratives, genres, etc.), the use of language is characterized by complete openness. Words and sentences can be generated on the spot by people to accommodate their immediate communicative needs in a given situation in order to convey certain information or meaning in a certain intentional manner. However, there are groups of people in a given speech community that pursue joint interests, for instance, professional groups such as carpenters, musicians, bankers, or teachers. These people use language in a particular way in order to efficiently communicate their special interests. The specialized language of a group of people or community⁶ indicates membership in a Discourse. This notion comes very close to Bakhtin’s concept of speech genre (cf. Section 4.2) but puts greater emphasis on generative and restraining aspects. Gunther Kress (1985: 7) defines Discourse as follows: “A discourse provides a set of possible statements about a given area, and organizes and gives structure to the manner in which a particular topic, object, process is to be talked about. In that it provides descriptions, rules, permissions and prohibitions of social and individual actions.” This definition of Discourse as designating the conceptual territory on which knowledge is produced, is echoed by Paul du Gay (1996) who defines Discourse as referring “to a group of statements which provide a language for talking about a topic and a way of producing a partic-

6 Mercer (2000: 169) defines community as “a social unit – larger and looser than a family, smaller and more cohesive than a society – whose activities are based on foundations of past shared experience, common interests and language-based ways of thinking together.”

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ular kind of knowledge about a topic. Thus the term refers both to the production of knowledge through language and representation and the way that knowledge is institutionalized, shaping social practices and setting new practices into play” (du Gay 1996: 43). Discourses therefore provide ways of coordinating with other people, places, times, and identities. But they also provide ways of relating to inanimate objects such as tools, technologies, clothes, etc. These two domains of animate and inanimate, however, cannot be separated in the context of Discourse since it also has the potential to combine them. For example, people can express their membership of a Discourse community by dressing in a particular manner. Therefore, Discourse is also about facilitating, situating, performing, and recognizing subjectpositionings. Discourses in the latter sense are located on a domain level, for example, in professional communities, institutional practices, or similar. However, discourses (with a lowercase “d”) can also refer to forms of interaction that are much more than only the exchange of views of two or more participants. Blommaert (2005) points out that discourse is not simply a synchronic event but that diachronic elements play a fundamental role in discourse. These are not only elements innate in language (e.g., Bakhtin’s heteroglossia) but also subjective elements brought into the discourse by the interlocutors, for instance, memories, fantasies, narratives, and desires. Blommaert refers to this phenomenon as “layered simultaneity”: “We have to conceive of discourse as subject to layered simultaneity. It occurs in a realtime, synchronic event, but it is simultaneously encapsulated in several layers of historicity, some of which are within the grasp of the participants while others remain invisible but are nevertheless present” (Blommaert 2005: 130; emphasis in the original). Discourses function on several levels within a given speech community, namely on the subjective (cognitive and emotional) level, on a domain level (for instance, the Discourse of an academic discipline), and on the social level (for instance, what is reported and discussed in the media). On all three levels, Discourse has simultaneously normative and transforming effects; it is shaped by the participants in the D/discourse but also shapes their beliefs, values, customs, etc. Therefore D/discourse is simultaneously constitutive of social identities, social relations, and systems of knowledge and beliefs within a speech community (cf. Fairclough 1995: 131). Obviously, there are competing D/discursive practices in society, and the individual usually participates in several D/discursive strands. Each discursive event has three basic dimensions to it: it is a spoken or written text of language, it is an instance of Discursive practice, and it is a piece of social practice (Fairclough 1995: 133). On a meso-level, Discourses provide the meanings and values which

124 | 4 Language and the intersubjective construction of meaning subjects use in order to position themselves; a position includes a set of rights, duties, and obligations as a social agent (cf. Harré and Gillet 1994: 35). Since Discourses are, to a certain extent, inherently contradictive and in competition with one another, the subject has to construe his or her own position in the repertoire of the D/discourses available to him or her. This means that the individual is not in complete control of his or her social and societal positioning, as it depends on the degree of availability of D/discourse (linguistic and otherwise) to him or her. Therefore, the individual is passively positioned as much as he or she is actively positioning his or her self (cf. Bamberg 2004). A position is not just a place taken up or attributed in Discourse but it involves certain rights and obligations: [A] position is a complex cluster of generic personal attributes, structured in various ways, which impinges on the possibilities of personal, intergroup, and even intrapersonal action through some assignments of such rights, duties and obligations to an individual as are sustained by the cluster. For example, if someone is positioned as incompetent in a certain field of endeavor, they will not be accorded the right to contribute to discussions in that field. (Harré and Langenhove 1999: 1)

This definition places the interactive activities within the moral framework triangulated by an interlocutor’s rights, duties, and obligations. These are not stable, but they can vary (unlike roles, that are often quite permanent) with regard to features of the intersubjectively constructed situations within which interactions are conducted. Hence, positions are highly context-dependent and, because the events in social reality are always open to numerous interpretations, positions taken up by a subject can be offered, accepted, claimed, defended, challenged, resisted, or rejected by the interlocutors. Positions can be taken up and left behind within the conduct of interaction; once people take up a subject position within a Discourse, they have available to them a particular, albeit limited, set of concepts, images, metaphors, ways of speaking, self-narratives, and so on that they take on as their own (cf. Burr 1998: 145). Not only do our subject positions constrain and shape what we do in a certain moment in interaction, but in their totality they are taken on as part of our psychology, providing us with our sense of identity, i.e., the self-narratives we use to talk and think about ourselves (cf. Chapter 6).⁷ Membership of a particular Discourse community is, among other things, demonstrated by fluency in the discourse. By using a specific form of language, usually in respect to lexical items and grammatical structure but also in terms of genre and register, the participants can be sure that much of the community-

7 Positioning theory is preferred here to role theory because role theory is overly restrictive in its definition of prescribed and relatively stable roles in Discourse and society.

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specific knowledge can be taken for granted among the interlocutors so that communication can be very efficient because much of this tacit knowledge does not have to be made explicit. This characteristic can also foster smoother crosscultural interaction once there is a minimum of shared language established, because the specificity of the knowledge domain cuts across boundaries. Such specialized Discourse for occupational communities also has the important function of creating and maintaining professional (and personal) identities (cf. Chapter 6). Mercer (2000) refers in this context to the slang used by stockbrokers on New York’s Wall Street which is highly charged with metaphors of misogynistic sex and warfare: “Stocks are commonly given female nicknames, and the acts of trading them are transformed into sexual acts: traders ride Pamela, or pull out of Becky. They touch but don’t penetrate some parts of the market. When things go wrong, then speculators get burned or blown out” (Mercer 2000: 112; emphasis in the original). Mercer interprets this as the wish of almost all stockbrokers to redefine their work along those metaphorical terms since they are almost all male. When more females become members of this occupational community, a change of these particular discursive habits will be inevitable (cf. Mercer 2000: 112). Discourse is a genre of interaction in which the utterances of each of the interlocutors are determined by the position they occupy in a certain social formation. Meanings of utterances are situated in specific yet complex networks of these particular elements of certain Discourses; they do not exist as such outside these networks. Membership of a Discourse is flagged by the proficiency in the dominant jargon but this situation can sometimes be abused. Mercer (2000: 113–115) highlights the potential for criminal abuse of discursive membership by hoaxers and confidence tricksters who, after presenting forged credentials for the purpose of entering the Discourse community, pursue successful careers in certain professional communities, for instance, in medicine, law, or accountancy, solely because they are able to speak convincingly in the professional jargon of the respective occupational communities. This shows that the ability to move within the relevant Discourse may be at least as important as knowing the actual practices of a particular Discourse community. It is exactly this feature that makes it easy for charlatans to become accepted members of that Discourse community; but it also means that these communities may be ignorant to alternatives to conventional views and thus resistant to change as long as elements of change are not formulated in the appropriate register of that particular discourse. In his work, the French philosopher Michel Foucault (1977; 2002) elaborates on Discourse as a framework for understanding a particular field of knowledge. Discourses arise out of certain discursive practices which, by using certain typical patterns, develop discursive formations. A Discourse is determined by a set of rules which are not necessarily formal and acknowledged. These largely implied

126 | 4 Language and the intersubjective construction of meaning rules determine the sort of statement that can be made; for instance, the statement “the moon is made of blue cheese” is not a valid within a scientific Discourse, but it can be valid within a poetic Discourse. The Discourse also determines what the criteria for “truth” are, what sort of things can be talked about, and what sort of things can be said about them (cf. Baldwin et al. 2004: 30). Foucault (1977; 2002) is particularly interested in the relationship between Discourse and power. Discursive formations are political in character and contain ideological stances, and they are constituted by spoken or written texts. Foucault suggests that Discourses systematically construct the subjects and worlds for a specific social sphere. For example, it is not so much in catching the criminal that power is expressed but much more in the preceding activities of producing the notion of the criminal. Without the Discursive construct of the criminal, there would be no such institutions as the police, the penal code, or the prison. It is this body of knowledge – the Discourse of criminology – that gives rise to ways of dealing with the criminal. Foucault suggests: “There is no power relation without the correlative constitution of a field of knowledge, nor any knowledge that does not presuppose and constitute at the same time power relations” (Foucault 1977: 27). Hence, the whole sphere of criminology with its manifestations of legal documents, the police, and the prison are created together in a particular Discourse, not suddenly, but historically as a result of supporting D/discursive formations. Thus, one can speak of D/discursive formations of constructs of elements of “reality;” objects and institutions therefore cannot be experienced and understood a priori but only within the order of a discursive formation in which the object or institution in question has been allocated a specific place (cf. Münckler 2002: 328). Discourses do not exist in mutually exclusive relations; they are structured and interrelated. Thus, there also exists an asymmetrical power relationship between them, as some Discourses are more prestigious, legitimated, and obvious than others. Hence much of the social process of making sense in public spaces (for example, in school, media, parliament, but also in intersubjective communication) is derived, according to Foucault (1977), from an ideological struggle between different Discourses. On a personal level, D/discourses contribute to the transformation of subjective constructs of meaning because they are open to social discursive shaping in several Discourse worlds. These are normally not regulated (except in formal situations) and develop a dynamic of their own which is not under the direct control of any one of the participants in the D/discourse. Therefore, the subjective positioning (in the passive) is always open to potentially detrimental forces inherent in different D/discourses and requires constant reconstruction of meaning by the individual, based on the multitude of information and influences he or she is exposed to.

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The subjective positioning (in the active) is based on what a subject construes as his or her interests, ambitions, and discursive moves, and how he or she presents and represents himself or herself discursively, socially, culturally, and psychologically through the use of symbolic systems. In acting out one’s daily life, one confers meaning on situations, not only as a result of immediate sensory stimulation, but also (and mainly) in accordance with successful past discursive and narrative constructs in the larger framework of a particular Discourse and genre. This in turn guides subjects’ ways of construing what happens to them and, consequently, their reactions and attitudes to those interpreted occurrences. This process narrows down, or even excludes, certain alternative reactions due to the (non-)availability of certain Discourses: “Given that a person is always trying to make sense of their life and the situations around them, they cannot just abandon their established discursive positionings and put nothing in their place. Alternative meanings have to arise and be validated in some way” (Harré and Gillet 1994: 127). Although each subject construes events, experiences, objects, and memories differently according to their specific interests, values, and discursive orientations, he or she is basically open to alternative constructs within the Discourse, particularly if one or more of his or her particular actions was unsuccessful; now the subject has to develop new perspectives of prediction and likeliness of occurrence: People operate with the meaning available to them in discourse and fashion a psychological life by organizing their behavior in the light of these meanings and integrating them over time. The result of the integrative project is a personality or character that is, to the extent permitted by the discursive skills of the subject/agent, coherent and creative. The ideal is a psychological life with the character of an artistic project and not merely a stream of experiences and responses to stimulation. Of such a life we might say that it has meaning in the same sense as a work of art has meaning. The meaning is no more summarizable in words than is a symphony or a painting but it is discernible by those who are themselves well versed in discourses, their structures, and their interrelations. (Harré and Gillet 1994: 143)

Here, Harré and Gillet emphasize the active positioning which can be done very deliberately so that the individual, from his or her subjective perspective, enhances his or her standing in the Discourse. Although the positioning is being done in the active, the individual has no absolute control over the result of this process which is, to a large extent, predictable, thanks to Discursive formations and genres. Thus, genres and D/discourses function as a central sphere, not only for the intersubjective construction of meaning (including institutions and possible worlds), but also for the construction of the personal and social identities of people moving within them. Harré and Gillet’s metaphor of a symphony of meaning (which is reminiscent of Saussure’s [1974: 18] metaphor of language

128 | 4 Language and the intersubjective construction of meaning as a symphony of signs; cf. Section 4.1) captures the collaborative construction of meaning in a D/discourse in addition to the subjective D/discursive, social, linguistic, and cultural competence needed to fully appreciate the meaning. Genres refer to a socially valid type of language use with defined subject positions (e.g., interviews, or TV news), whereas Discourse is a social practice containing an area of knowledge which is defined from a particular perspective (e.g., the Discourse of feminism or Marxism). Just like genres, some Discourses are culturespecific in their organization of meaning (e.g., the Discourse of juju) but others are cross-culturally valid, for instance, academic, technological, or business Discourses (or elements thereof). Therefore, they can be exploited for L2 learning in the sense of creating an awareness on the part of the L2 learner of the structuring and generating power of Discourse not only for the L2, but also for the L1.

4.6 Intersubjectivity Any human interaction, be it verbal or non-verbal, takes place in a space between two or more participants who engage in interaction from different respective subject positions, different levels of access to discursively constructed social knowledge, and different degrees of sociocultural background knowledge. On the basis of their subjectively internalized knowledge, interlocutors have, consciously or not, construed certain goal orientations which they bring into the process of interacting with others. However, the interactants do not simply transmit information from sender to receiver in a one-dimensional fashion, but simultaneously negotiate and construct meaning and their subject-positions in the process of interaction, set in a particular sociocultural context and fraught with different interpretations, goals, ambitions, and motivations. True intersubjectivity means that people are able to transcend their private worlds mainly by semiotic means, influenced by intersubjective physiological displays of emotions, be it consciously (e.g., in the form of feigning or suppressing anger, shame, fear, etc.) or unconsciously without understanding their significance. In the first case, emotions can be managed (cf. Theodosius 2012) and strategically used in interaction. In the latter case, the experience of emotion cannot be suppressed (since the subject is not aware of it), but because of physiological manifestations of the emotion (e.g., blushing) it has an effect on intersubjective construction of meaning; it is observable for others and consequently emotional states of the interlocutor can be inferred by the other interactants. Interaction is the prime facilitator of intersubjectivity. It is characterized by a transitory and temporal state of the mind since its main purpose is the communicative production of an immediate dynamic basis for negotiating and coordinating

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the differences in spaces and positions of the interactants. It is driven by the desire to co-construct coherent and viable meaning and pursue certain objectives in interaction (although this is not always the case, for example, in formulae of greeting, such as “How are you?” where no extensive or serious answer is expected). This joint communicative activity is, as far as mental functions are concerned, established in semiotic interaction in which the activity is dialogically or multilogically structured. Usually, it is neither rationally planned by the interlocutors nor brought about by any external causes; rather, the state of intersubjectivity is produced in the spontaneously occurring activity of spreading out spaces between the interlocutors, offering, rejecting, changing, and accepting subject positions in the process. During the activity of interacting, the participants are typically aware not only of the intentions and motives of the other interlocutors, but also of their general worldview, including their beliefs and attitudes. In psychology, this phenomenon has become known as Theory of Mind (e.g. Premack and Woodruff 1978; Doherty 2009), which can be defined as the ability of human beings, in place roughly from the age of four years (but starting to develop from the age of 18 months, cf. Doherty 2009: 4–5), to attribute the mental state of another person (and of oneself) in terms of desires, beliefs, knowledge, intentions, and emotions to oneself and to others and understand that others have mental states different from one’s own. The internal state of another’s mind, however, can be inferred from whatever cues are available, relating back to the knowledge of the spectrum of one’s own feelings, intentions, desires, and beliefs. This ability of putting oneself in the other’s place means that we can posit their intentions and predict their next course of action so that we can construct our action accordingly. However, we cannot directly access or observe the mind of self or others, but we have to intuit our own mind through introspection and infer the state of mind of others by their actions. Since its inception by Premack and Woodruff in 1978, the Theory of Mind framework has become a major empirical field of research in psychology. However, it is flawed, as it is operating with concepts of isolated minds that are mere objects of knowledge. This approach ignores the fact that the mind, the emotion, and behavior of individuals are shaped by the action and language of other people in a community that is culturally constituted. From this perspective, understanding the mental states of other people is not the result of “the ingenious one-off contrivance (or innate activation) of some psychological mechanism, but is the accumulating product of the progressive enculturation of the individual” (Sharrock and Coulter 2009: 87; emphasis in the original). The other person and I are not meeting as unitary and self-enclosed individuals, but we have acquired a wide array of cultural, linguistic, and social skills which enable us to develop a co-constructed and shared understanding of situations, concepts, others (in terms

130 | 4 Language and the intersubjective construction of meaning of emotions, actions, perspectives, and attitudes) and each other by participatory intersubjective interaction and blending of spaces. Thus, the framework of Theory of Mind will not be used in this book; instead the related concept of empathy will be used in the double-meaning of Einfühlungsvermögen (i.e., the ability to feel with the other, relating more to the intuitive emotional aspects) and Perspektivenübernahme (i.e., perspective-taking, relating more to the cognitive aspects). The concept of empathy puts emphasis on shared cultural, social, and linguistic skills as the basis for participatory interaction and co-construction of meaning which the Theory of Mind paradigm largely ignores. In the activity of spreading out their mental spaces, interlocutors temporarily suspend their own beliefs and attitudes, hence momentarily adopting the attitudes of others and changing their attitudes, opinions, and subject positionings. This is done on the spot in the spontaneously responsive sphere of meaningful communication, where the participants are acting, not individually and independently of one another, but collaboratively as a collective. We typically assume that our counterparts share not only our understanding of the kind of interaction we are presently involved in, but also our basic assumptions about values, purposes, goals, and ambitions which are important for creating a shared frame of reference (which normally does not give rise to problems within speech communities). Thus, intersubjectivity is not only located in actual ongoing verbal interactions, but it also has a historical dimension, in that it can also be found in shared experiences, inferences, connotations, and memories. Casual conversation is often seen as insignificant because it frequently appears to be rather aimless and of trivial content, having the main purpose of confirming and continuing the social relationship between the interactants, rather than exchanging relevant information or constructing relevant meaning. Eggins and Slade (1997) challenge this myth, as they understand casual conversation as being the crucial site for the co-construction of meaning: “This is what we regard as the central paradox of casual conversation. The paradox lies in the fact that casual conversation is the type of talk in which we feel most relaxed, most spontaneous and most ourselves, and yet casual conversation is a critical site for the social construction of reality” (Eggins and Slade 1997: 16). In casual (but also in formal) conversation, the interactants operate with contextualization cues which they use in the form of situated inferences and which they try to decipher by drawing on the culturally shared frames of expectation which are applied in the concrete discourse (cf. Kramsch 1998: 35). The collective conduct of conversation implies that responsibility is shared among the interlocutors and that the course of conversation itself can therefore determine the contribution of the interlocutors and the degree of their blending of spaces. Thus, the German philosopher Gadamer suggests:

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We say we “conduct” a conversation, but the more fundamental a conversation is, the less its conduct lies within the will of either partner. (. . . ) Rather, it is generally more correct to say that we fall into conversation, or even that we become involved in it. (. . . ) [T]he people conversing are far less the leaders of it than the led. (. . . ) All this shows that a conversation has a spirit of its own, and that the language used in it bears its own truth within it, i.e. that it reveals something which henceforth exists. (Gadamer 1975: 345)

Therefore, contributions to an interaction cannot always be pinned down to the mental states and intentions of the individual interlocutors. The contributions of the interlocutors, in terms both of content and manner, are to a large extent emergent in the interaction itself which seems to unfold in its own right, following its own terms, but generally guided by the requirements of a certain Discourse, narrative, or genre. The various subject-positionings, motivations, and the objectives of the interlocutors before and during interaction, their ability to recognize Discourses or genres and to adhere to their respective requirements, as well as their ability to read the other interactants’ spaces and voices, are important contextual factors in influencing communication on a psychological level. However, contextualization is not an explication for the participants in the conversation but serves as an indication of parallel co-construction on the basis of shared background knowledge. The complexity of factors influencing interaction between two or more people makes it very difficult to analyze, in theoretical terms, the state of intersubjectivity in communication and the joint construction of a transient, temporarily shared “reality.” Intersubjectivity is also not only located in the immediate emerging state of interaction but can be located in shared memories and experiences, connotations, and projections. Engaging in conversation means moving temporarily beyond oneself, to see the subject-matter from the position of (cultural) others, and consequently qualifying and transforming one’s previously held views. Good conversations have the potential to change the interlocutors’ stances in the long run by opening up and adopting new concepts and perspectives, as Gadamer (1975: 348) suggests: “Reaching an understanding in conversation presupposes that both partners are ready for it and are trying to recognize the full value of what is alien and opposed to them.” Intersubjective communication requires not an insistence on one’s point of view but an openness and playfulness which can make us lose our selves in the connection to another (or others) during an engaging conversation. Intersubjective communication has neither a fully orderly nor a fully disorderly structure, neither a fully subjective nor a fully objective character; it is located in-between these opposites. In a similar fashion to Gadamer, Goffman (1967: 113) discusses the spontaneously emergent “involvement obligations” and other responsibilities which interlocutors face in sustaining joint spontaneous involvement in interactions,

132 | 4 Language and the intersubjective construction of meaning along with some of the “involvement offences” that can be committed by becoming too willful or dominant in (inter-)actions. Like Gadamer, he notes the transient status of conversation when he suggests that, “a conversation has a life of its own and makes demands on its own behalf” (Goffman 1967: 113). However, the same interaction is usually interpreted or received differently by participants, leading to different kinds of involvement which can, of course, change in the course of the interaction. Goffman explains this aspect of involvement which can also disrupt smooth interaction: Social encounters differ a great deal in the importance that participants give to them but (. . . ) all encounters represent occasions when the individual can become spontaneously involved in the proceedings and derive from this a firm sense of reality. And this kind of feeling is not a trivial thing, regardless of the package in which it comes. When an incident occurs and spontaneous involvement is threatened, then reality is threatened. Unless the disturbance is checked, unless the interactants regain their proper involvement, the illusion of reality will be shattered, the minute social system that is brought into being with each encounter will be disorganized, and the participants will feel unruled, unreal, and anomic. (Goffman 1967: 135)

Thus, the minute system of participatory engagement in conversation creates spaces for the co-construction of viable “realities” which are of crucial importance for subjective acts of construction. Although contextual knowledge is normally inferred tacitly (cf. Chapter 8), interlocutors can appeal to this knowledge explicitly, for instance, in the case of misunderstandings, hence utilizing the metalinguistic property of language. This metalinguistic level is also used regularly by speakers in order to make sure that their utterances have been understood in the intended manner when they feel that they might have been misunderstood. Interaction, therefore, contributes not only to the sphere of intersubjectivity, but also to the collaborative construction of a viable “reality,” not only for the individual as an embodied subject and for the interactants as a collective, but also for the speech community at large. If intersubjectivity refers to the “probalistic nature of mutual understanding” (Yamada 2005: 86), then achieving intersubjectivity to a high degree is relatively unproblematic in monolingual and monocultural interaction (where interlocutors usually share a large fund of presuppositions and tacit background knowledge, mediated by symbolic systems). In intercultural communication, however, the socioculturally distributed forms of tacit knowledge alluded to by individual interlocutors may not immediately be available to all participants. This can be the case for an interlocutor who does not have the same history of shared interaction as others, or someone who is not a member of the same Discourse community, for example, a L2 learner.

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4.7 Blending spaces The foundational research on conceptual metaphors by Lakoff and Johnson (1980), Lakoff (1987), and others has shown the prominence of metaphorical thought in everyday life (cf. Section 3.4). This has led to a greater emphasis of metaphor studies within comprehensive models of human cognition, communication, and culture. Metaphor now tends to be seen as part of a larger system of human cognition and culturally embedded communicative practices; metaphor is understood to be produced and understood without extraordinary cognitive effort. The emphasis of metaphor studies has shifted in recent years from the question of how metaphors are understood to questions of where metaphors come from (e.g., brains, bodies, language, or culture) and how they are constrained by different Discourses (e.g., language, music, gesture, art). Blended space theory (also known as Conceptual Blending Theory and Conceptual Integration Theory), as proposed by Gilles Fauconnier, Mark Turner, and others, originating from metaphor studies, takes a broader approach to cognitive dimensions of how meaning is constructed. By contrast to conceptual metaphor theory which posits the mapping between two mental representations (“target” and “source,” cf. Section 3.4), blended space theory is more complex in that it conceptualizes cognitive organization, not in terms of domain, but of mental space which is a partial and temporary cognitive structure that interlocutors construct when talking or thinking about a perceived situation or configuration. Mental spaces are normally used to model dynamic mappings in language and thought. They provide the terrain for composing novel conceptual elements from certain inputs to a structure that cannot be found in the original inputs. Blending processes are by no means restricted to conceptual metaphors, but they relate to all mental processes of producing new meaning, including counterfactuals and conditionals. For example, the expression red tape denotes the fact that documents of legal proceedings were once tied together with a reddish ribbon. When there were many documents of legal proceedings visible in an office or in a court, one could observe a lot of red tape on a desk. The phrase red tape has subsequently taken on a meaning standing for (exaggerated) bureaucracy; the metonymic relationship, however, has been lost so that (as is typically the case) the meaning of this expression is taken to be metaphorical (cf. Niemeier 2005: 105). Thus, the original input in the blend has been lost. Mental spaces emerge in the cognitive domains built up by D/discourse in order “to provide a cognitive substrate for reasoning and for interfacing with the world” (Fauconnier 1997: 34). Fauconnier and Turner (2002: 40) suggest that “mental spaces are very partial. They contain elements of a situation and are typically structured by frames. They are interconnected, and can be modified as

134 | 4 Language and the intersubjective construction of meaning thought and discourse unfold.” Mental spaces are thus short-term constructs informed by more general and more stable structures of cultural knowledge (such as prototypes, schemata, frames, ICMs etc.; cf. Chapter 3) and are associated with a particular domain. These spaces can be very dynamic and temporary, although some can be more general and static, such as the understanding of the concept “house” (which can refer to many manifestations of this concept, such as a castle, a shed, a bungalow, a skyscraper, etc.). Each space contributes to a complex and interconnected network of spaces which has the potential to project certain spaces in order to re-categorize earlier information and map the new information onto the old domain. In blended space theory, the overall structure of the blended mental space consists of four different spaces. These spaces include a “generic” space, at least two different “input” spaces, and the “blended” space. The generic space “reflects some common, usually more abstract structure and organization shared by the inputs and defines the core cross-space mapping between them” (Fauconnier 1997: 149); it is related to culturally generated structures in terms of frames (cf. Section 3.2). The two input spaces share some domain-specific information and are mapped across the spaces in a manner similar to the mapping of source and target domains in conceptual metaphor theory (cf. Section 3.4). Simultaneously, the two input spaces project select information to the blended space, guided by the structural organization of the generic space. In the resulting “blended” space, the input spaces and the generic space are combined and they interact in terms of producing new knowledge, emerging from the creative blending process. The entire structure of the blend space thus becomes an emergent structure which produces novel meaning in the subjective mind. Although blended space theory provides a comprehensive model of cognitive processes, it operates with metaphors of conceptual packets, generic space, input spaces, and blending which tend to support an essentialist understanding of these items and processes on the basis of separating various discrete elements (cf. Ritchie 2004; Uttal 2011: 17–18). This separation works against a connectionist understanding of mental processes, and the figurative use of central terminology contributes to obscuring processes specified by the model. However, the model still combines explanations of linguistic creativity with explanations of human imagination to a degree that is very useful for the discussion in the context of (intercultural) interaction, particularly if it is taken more metaphorically in terms of blending than Fauconnier and Turner intended. The activity of blending, which is typically carried out subconsciously, “consists in integrating partial structures from two separate domains into a single structure with emergent properties within a third domain” (Fauconnier 1997: 22). Blending is not something that requires deliberate effort, rather it is fre-

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quently “generated on the fly” (Fauconnier and Turner 2002: 49), although blending typically relies on entrenched mappings and frames. Fauconnier and Turner (2002: 390) suggest that blending is fundamental to the human condition to the extent that, “Living in the human world is ‘living in the blend’ or, rather, living in many coordinated blends.” The input spaces do not necessarily have to be tied to linguistic concepts; they can also include visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, tactile, kinesic, and sensual inputs, all of which rely on embodied image-schematic structures for the expression of meaning. For instance, Zbikowski (2008) analyzed the blending of spaces of several classical music pieces with regard to the musical representation of knocking (underlining the musical text) or the temporal enactment of redemption, based on the fourth movement of J.S. Bach’s cantata Nun kommt der Heiden Heiland. Zbikowski (2008: 519) shows how the generic input space of “redemption” guides the blending of the input spaces of the cantata’s text (Christ knocking at the door, believer opening the door) and music (change from dissonant E minor to consonant G major), resulting in the blended space of temporal enactment of redemption, slow and steady progress, and the active path to redemption. In this example, the coordinated input spaces of text and music bring about an emergent understanding (and feeling) of what redemption is about which would not be achieved by using the textual and musical input spaces in isolation. However, it is a property of an optimal blend that the original input spaces and the network of connections activated in the blend should be easy to reconstruct (cf. Lakoff 2008: 31). The blending process can be differentiated into three basic processes (cf. Fauconnier and Turner 2002): (1) composition (or fusion) refers to the projection of content from each of the inputs into the blended space; (2) completion refers to the filling out of a pattern in the blend (based on subjective and cultural knowledge) which is particularly evident when the mapping includes insinuations or juxtapositions; (3) elaboration refers to the simulated mental performance in the blend which includes connections inherent in the input spaces but not explicitly intended for the blend; however, such connections can take the blend along various possible trajectories.⁸ These complex processes can be demonstrated by using any blended expression, for instance, that of the “state as ship.” The composition includes the two inputs which have been culturally projected in a metaphorical mapping, i.e., the ship as source and the state as target. This blend

8 In these elaborations on blended space theory, the various techniques for building particular integration networks such as cobbling and sculpting, compression, emergent structure, and overarching goals (cf. Fauconnier and Turner 2008) are omitted because they are not immediately relevant to the argument developed in this section.

136 | 4 Language and the intersubjective construction of meaning maps the self-propelled motion of ships onto that of states, paths as courses of action, motion as time, weather as circumstances, location as state of affairs, etc. These conventional metaphors contribute to the cultural framing of the state and its history as a ship plying the seas, thus creating a rich blending framework with multiple spaces for the integration process. Once the metaphor has invoked the image of a large container holding many people (or of a state moving forward through space) and the concept that political events are influenced by the metaphorical weather, these images may evoke culturally entrenched representations of a ship with all the other elements typically associated with ships. However, on closer inspection there may be certain patterns in the blend which need to be filled (or completed) by the subject. For instance, a ship has a material hull, radar, sails, engines, and many more details which are ignored for the blend. This means that the cognition of the subject, guided by culturally entrenched mappings of the generic space, has to complete the blend by conceptually adding or abstracting features of the source (or target) domain so as to understand the intended meaning. Although conceptual frames guide the blending processes, any conceptualization involving metaphors or simple conceptual associations (such as simile or metonymy) is open for subjective elaboration. Conventional metaphoric relationships can be used as building blocks for complex conceptual blends. For instance, the metaphor of “state as ship” can be elaborated in several directions, be it the notion of “safe harbor,” the image of a “lookout,” “captain,” “sailor,” “helmsman/pilot,” or a “ship of fools” (as was done in 2009 by the Irish author Fintan O’Toole in analyzing, according to the subtitle of the book, “How Stupidity and Corruption sank the Celtic Tiger”). However, the blends are selective by only drawing on some elements of our knowledge of the input domains while ignoring others, such as the size or material substance of the ship, or the fact that states do not actually move across the sea. The processes of selection and elaboration are accomplished by subjective cognition, unconsciously and on the spot, thus drawing on our momentary understandings of conceptual domains (influenced by contextual factors) and the dominance of the target (in comparison to the source) which is explicitly represented in the blend. The knowledge triggered by the input spaces is not stable, as conceptual metaphor theory would imply, but instead consists of relatively flexible structures, guided (but not restrained) by subjectively internalized cultural frames. The selectivity of projection from the input spaces is partially cultural and partially subjective, as well as the blending process itself which is structured by the activities of composition, completion, and elaboration, which are not only characterized by elements of culturality and subjectivity, but also by the situational context (e.g., of interaction) and the nature of the input spaces (e.g., use of contextualization cues, humor, cynicism, sarcasm, etc.).

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Thus, inherent in mental blended spaces are several distinct dimensions which can be defined as cultural (i.e., culturally constructed schematic knowledge), subjective (i.e., experiences, memories, desires, identities, and positionings), situational (i.e., psychological context), and physical (i.e., technological concepts underlying certain input spaces). These dimensions can be emphasized to different degrees during processes of blending, and this is particularly evident in the use of conceptual metaphors (cf. Section 3.4). If, as Fauconnier and Turner (2002) assume, the mind is metaphoric in nature, metaphorically-constructed mental spaces always have at least two input spaces: the source domain and the target domain. However, traditional conceptual metaphor theory constructs these input spaces as too static and reductive in terms of single mappings which ignore far richer integration networks constructed by means of overarching principles, such as the flexibility and difference in emphasis of dimensions of input spaces (Fauconnier and Turner 2008: 53–54; see above example of “state as ship”). Traditional conceptual metaphor theory focuses on cross-domain mappings and inference transfer, but the integrations that lie behind observable metaphorical and conceptual systems are of far greater complexity in terms of the subjective dimension of sculpting mental spaces and the culturally-built schematic structures that guide the process of mapping. Subjective levels of access to cultural systems vary, and when processes of mapping and blending take place, subjective experiences, emotions, memories, and desires are also drawn upon so that “meaning construction is supported and effected by highly elaborate dynamic systems” (Fauconnier and Turner 2008: 65). When trying to understand and construct new information, we are blending this new information with existing knowledge, not by single mappings, but by complex inferences and conceptual integration, resulting in emergent structures of novel knowledge. However, this novel knowledge is structurally still compatible with the elaborate integration networks of complex mappings (otherwise it would be incomprehensible). For instance, the conceptualization of time can vary considerably according to how it is subjectively experienced in particular situations; an hour can be conceptualized as a “slow hour,” yet it can also be seen as passing quickly, depending on circumstance. In both metaphoric concepts, the domain of time is blended with that of speed and the subjective blended experience of time passing slowly (or quickly), thus overriding the physical fact that time always passes at the same rate, be it measured in seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, etc. The emergent blend is determined by the immediate attitude of the subject conceptualizing time from the input mental space of momentarily felt subjective experience, whereas the physical reality is ignored for the blend. The blend, however, also uses cultural schemata which legitimize the mapping of the time domain to that of space. Blended domains such as these then can be used as one

138 | 4 Language and the intersubjective construction of meaning of the input spaces into new blends, for example, the “cyclic day” which is a blend of the physical reality of the synchronicity of time in terms of its unfolding and the human perception of the coming and going of days, as determined by the daynight rhythm, which in turn is a result of the rotation of the planet earth. The universal event of time is measured in fragmented timepieces such as seconds, minutes, or hours which enable us to perceive units of time with a definite duration between beginning and end, suggesting the mapping of time onto the space domain: “In the emergent structure of the blended space, the universal event [of time] becomes a universal spatial length, and therefore a measure, analogous to yards, meters, and so on” (Fauconnier and Turner 2008: 59). The time event has, then, a length, and subjective experience can be counterfactual, as in “The lecture went on forever,” or, to insinuate a different subjective experience “The lecture went slowly for me but quickly for her,” implying different levels of subjective engagement. Although everything on Earth is moved through the universal event of time at the same rate, the new blend of subjectively experienced time as space “derives its motion from the network in which time moves, but derives its landmark from the network in which Ego moves” (Fauconnier and Turner 2008: 61), hence blending subjective feelings of duration with the speed of motion. The subjective space in turn can be heavily influenced by very specific memories, experiences, desires, or dreams which can be triggered by minute details, for example, coming across a certain configuration in the lecture which reminds the subject of certain previous experiences and leads to the mind wandering off in this direction, instead of paying attention to what is being said by the lecturer. In the human mind, processes of identity-construal, integration, and imagination inextricably work together. In these processes, the mind uses projected or metaphorical understandings by bringing mental spaces together, or blending them, in order to create novel understandings of situations, experiences, memories, configurations, and self. Thus, “blending imaginatively transforms our most fundamental human realities, the parts of our lives most deeply felt and most clearly consequential” (Fauconnier and Turner 2002: 28). Fauconnier and Turner (2002: 28–36) provide several elaborate examples of this mechanism, one of which relates to cultural sexual practices in Tokyo, where rooms in bordellos (called “image clubs”) are made to look like schoolrooms, complete with blackboards. The prostitutes, all chosen for their youthful looks, play the role of pupils, dressed in school uniforms, and acting like apprehensive teenagers. The customers take the role of a teacher. Thus, the blend has as protagonists a teacher and a secondary school student, acting in an imaginary school context. The purpose of this blend, for the customer, is to imagine having sex with a school girl (which in reality he cannot legally have); he can inhabit this blended space mentally while

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in actuality being aware of the fact that the prostitute is not really a pupil but only pretending to behave like one. However, the blend is more complex than this: The customer in the image club (. . . ) has at the same time the mental space with the experienced and trained prostitute, the mental space with the imaginary and unattainable high-school student, and the blended mental space with the woman in the club as an attainable high-school student. The high-school student is projected to the blend from the imaginary input, while the actual sexual act that takes place is imported from the material reality linked to the mental space with the prostitute. (Fauconnier and Turner 2002: 29)

The blending processes are even more complex, as some projections to the blend are stronger than others. For example, the role of the teacher is not typically filled to the extent that the customer actually sets mathematical assignments for the “pupil” or tries to teach her a second language. Blending here is not just a projection of inferences but facilitates novel integrated action. However, the role of the woman in this blend is that of a subaltern (both as an imaginary pupil and a professional prostitute) who is being paid for her involvement, and her blends of the situation may be fundamentally different from those of the customer (e.g., mapping the whole situation to her typical workplace, without adopting the blends of the school metaphor). This example of mapping the whorehouse onto the schoolhouse, giving rise to many blends within this frame, shows that mental spaces can “juggle representations that, in the real world, are incompatible with each other” (Fauconnier and Turner 2002: 30). This implies that blending spaces in the mind transcends the normal reign of consciousness and that “consciousness can glimpse only a few vestiges of what the mind is doing” (Fauconnier and Turner 2002: 34). The process of blending spaces is thus an integral part of everyday life of which we are typically not aware. It involves concepts that are blended in the subjective mind, and the process of blending is structurally guided by cultural frames and subjective experiences, memories, fantasies, and desires. The processes of conceptual blending are, however, not confined to spaces within a linguistic or cultural community; they can transcend these realms in the mind of the subject by combining elements of different linguistic and cultural communities and hence create new meanings in an intercultural dimension. These novel meanings are typically characterized by a higher degree of subjectivity than intracultural blends because the cultural frames of the generic input space have lost some of their structuring powers for the blending process which now has to draw on several cultural frames, albeit to different degrees, not least because different degrees of cultural competence are involved. In the mind, the learner blends the initially familiar concepts of the native culture with the corresponding concepts of the other culture to which he or she tries to gain access. This intercultural blending of

140 | 4 Language and the intersubjective construction of meaning concepts has the potential to decenter the native L1-mediated concepts and does not fully integrate the L2-mediated concepts, thus creating a complex mix of elements of both, influenced by the degree of cultural competence and conceptual grasp of the learner’s present level of learning and of intercultural competence (cf. Section 10.2). Blended space theory, as developed by Fauconnier, Turner, and others, focuses on cognitive processes of blending. It is not so much concerned with cultural difference and diversity which may have a significant impact on the generic space. Therefore, blended space theory ignores important human conditions that clearly influence the blending process, such as psychological, emotional, attitudinal, or behavioral domains, and differences in cultural traditions. For the discussion in this book, blended space theory is understood in a more inclusive manner; the original blended space theory of Fauconnier, Turner, and others is taken as a basic model of producing novel meaning and is transferred to other domains than cognition. The contributing elements of the blended mental space, i.e., the generic space and the two (or more) input spaces, cannot be identified in a precise manner when the model is transferred to the domains of emotion, behavior, and attitudes because of the absence of clearly definable concepts for these spaces, due to the very dynamic and in parts hardly verbalizable elements of these domains. In the context of intercultural L2 learning, the processes of blending refer to changes in aspects of behavior, attitudes, emotions, and identities as a result of having experienced culturally sanctioned modes of acting and reacting in the L2 and its sociocultural context for these domains which may be different from the internalized modes of one’s own cultural community. The space opened up between the behavior, emotions, and attitudes of the L2 learner which are based on social structures, cultural patterns, and subjective positionings, and culturally diverse modes of feeling, behaving, and valuing is filled by subjective blends located between these internalized features and those newly encountered in the L2 classroom (in a progressive manner). For example, culturally constructed national stereotypes of the Germans as ruthlessly efficient, the French as arrogant, the English as patient, the Spaniards as hot blooded, the Belgians as dull, etc., can change with real-life personal encounters with people from these nations who do not conform to the stereotype at all, and consequently one adjusts one’s attitude accordingly (cf. Section 10.2, Principle 4). However, this change in attitude is brought about not only by the unmediated experience of otherness, but also by the cognitive effort of trying to comprehend the actions of the other and relate it to the stereotypical image of the other. In a similar manner, the change of attitude as a result of blending internalized frames with newly experienced, diverse, and culturally constructed frames is provided by the Swedish student KAL (cf. Chapter 10.3, Principle 8) who encountered the

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widespread phenomenon of employed housemaids in El Salvador. At first, based on her Swedish cultural frame of reference (i.e., the generic space), she intuitively objected to the fact that affluent families employ housemaids because of the whiff of economic exploitation and the fact that housemaids are not treated as equals in the household (i.e., input space 1). However, staying in her Salvadorian host family, she had to deal directly with their housemaid on a daily basis (i.e., input space 2). Gradually, her attitude changed because she was able to contextualize the constellation from a different cultural frame (i.e., input space 2): “It was hard accepting the fact that she [the housemaid] was going to do things for me that I could do (. . . ). After some time I could focus on the positive aspects and see her point of view. She was lucky to have a job that she liked and where she was treated well” (KAL, cited in Lundgren 2009: 145). The adoption of the other’s rationale for the wide spread existence of housemaids in El Salvador in terms of employment opportunities in an otherwise depressed economy and in terms of culturally acceptable forms of intersubjective behavior at the workplace led to the blended attitude of principally still being critical of such forms of exploitation, but on the other hand approving of them, given the local economic, social, and cultural context. For the emotional domain, although most concepts and metaphors are grounded in universal bodily experiences, there is a significant cultural framing of these experiences which can lead to variation in the kind of source domains in emotion metaphors across different cultures. Kövecses (2008) analyzes a variety of emotion metaphors across cultures, most of which can allegedly be traced back to the generic-level metaphor emotions are forces. However, when emotions transcend the linguistic and conceptual levels, it is difficult to apply blended space theory in this regard. Cacciari (2008) provides some interesting examples of cross-sensory blends. In an experiment evoking unconventional cross-modal correspondence carried out by Koehler (1947, cited in Cacciari 2008: 438), participants were presented with two meaningless visual shapes (one of them with sharp changes in the visual direction of the lines, the other with rounded shapes) and asked them to pair each shape with either the linguistic label Takete or with Maluma. Although they had never seen or heard these stimuli before, the participants unambiguously associated the graph with the sharp changes in the visual direction of the lines with Takete and rounded one with Maluma (cf. Cacciari 2008: 438). This surprisingly unanimous result can be interpreted by the link between phonemic and perceptual-geometrical properties, or by the reflection of the sharp inflections of the sound and the movement of the tongue on the palate in the sharp changes in the visual directions of the lines for Takete. According to Gestalt psychologists, the visual forms and phonemes forming the linguistic labels share an evocative trait or expressive property that belongs to the object but are perceived by the subject as part of his or her experience, and

142 | 4 Language and the intersubjective construction of meaning are thus not “occasional emotional vibrations, but the contribution of emotion to the cognitive side of perception” (Massironi 2000: 12, cited in Cacciari 2008: 438). These expressive properties of shapes, sounds, or colors are not so much emotional projections or experience-based associations but real and objective carriers of properties contained in the optical (or phonetic) array. The unreflected domains of intuition and of emotion can, therefore, influence and aid cognitive efforts of trying to make sense. Fauconnier and Turner (2002; 2008) discuss many examples of conceptual blending; while the process of blending may be seen as universal, most of the examples provided relate to Western cultural frames. For instance, the example of time as space and its subjectively felt duration (see above) is presented from a Western point of view where the natural event of time passing has been indicated for centuries by artificial time-measuring instruments such as clocks which make measurements of time countable like objects and valuable in terms of rewards for someone’s work (e.g., paid by the hour, giving rise to metaphors such as “time is money”). However, Fauconnier and Turner (2008) do not take into consideration other cultural conceptualizations of time which are marked by the absence of technological timekeeping instruments. As discussed in Section 3.5, fundamentally different cultural frames (compared to Western conceptualizations) have given rise to fundamentally different blends, resulting in culturally-specific subjective and collective conceptualizations and experiences of universally identical phenomena such as the day-night cycle of time (e.g., the Hopi conceptualization of the day as the visits of the same person, including the derived blends which are translated into action in terms of trying to influence the person’s attitude for the next visit; cf. Section 3.5). While the metaphorical nature of conceptual blending is evident in all human languages and cultures, metaphorical mappings rely on different cultural frames and input spaces that may be very specific to a culture and to culturally-influenced subjective domains of cognition, emotion, and behavior which have developed in a historical dimension. In intercultural scenarios of interaction and construction of meaning, these differences in input spaces can give rise to misunderstandings, or they can lead to the integration of the Other into the dominant frames of the subjectively internalized culture and language which, to a large extent, influence the conceptual blending processes. These potential drawbacks in intercultural understanding can be overcome by learning the L2 and the inherent cultural frames of the other culture in its historical development and pragmatic use. But even then the conceptual blending of culturally diverse input spaces and frames frequently results in blends that cannot be attributed to either of the cultural patterns of construal involved because the generic input space has lost its cultural structuring quality; since the cultural frames are used in the plural, the generic input space must rely on elements of frames of both

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(or more) cultures. Because the generic input space has shifted from established and internalized cultural frames to emergent intercultural constructs, the crosscultural conceptual blends rely more on subjective positionings in intercultural spaces which are characterized by the subject’s level of access to the inherent languages, cultures, and mappings. The intercultural blend is hence characterized by less authoritative structuring in terms of internalized cultural knowledge; it relies more on subjective knowledge of patterns, metaphors, mappings and conceptualizations, as well as the subject’s level of experiences, feelings, memories, and desires. Thus, the intercultural blend may require a higher degree of subjective knowledge and cognitive effort in the processes of cultural learning and blending, at least in the initial and intermediate stages of L2 learning, before the semiotic gap can be closed again by the internalization of the intercultural third place as the basis for all processes of thought, emotion, and behavior. Kramsch (2009a: 48–50) provides an example of one such intercultural blend, derived from the American-English concept of independent and the corresponding German concept of unabhängig. Both concepts have as their generic input the foundational meaning of someone or something not being dependent on someone or something else. Although defined in dictionaries as semantically identical, both concepts have undergone different socio-historical developments in their respective cultures. The American-English concept is mapped onto the political event of achieving independence from Great Britain in 1776 and the subsequent democratic system adopted in the USA. The political and emotional resonances of this historic event are kept alive by the annual ritual of Independence Day as the national holiday. Thus, the term independent is culturally and emotionally loaded for Americans. The German mapping of unabhängig is lacking these political, democratic, and emotional dimensions due to different historical developments. The German term for independent, therefore, stresses different mappings which are centered on the individual, rather than the nation. These relate to the financial status of the individual, but also his or her independence as a legal and social subject. Both dimensions are only bestowed at entering adulthood at the age of 18 years when the person exits the status of Unmündigkeit (‘immaturity’) and Abhängigkeit (‘dependence’). Upon successfully taking the school-leaving examinations (‘Abitur’) at the end of grammar school (‘Gymnasium’), the individual has reached the state of social maturity, as the Abitur is also known as Reifezeugnis (‘maturity certificate’). Thus, the German mappings of unabhängig stress the moral, developmental, and maturational aspects of being (or becoming) independent, whereas the American mappings have a distinctly political and emotional dimension. By creating the blend, the German or American-English L2 learner has to integrate these mappings which could look like the following (adapted from Kramsch 2009a: 49):

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Generic Space Independent as not being in a position of dependence (on someone or something else) Input 1 American-English independent Free from subjection Free from external control or support Self-governing

Input 2 German unabhängig Mature Autonomous Socially emancipated Financially autonomous

Blend Personal and social self-sufficiency Emancipation as moral, legal, and political categories

The blend combines elements of both inputs and generates a new, or emerging, structure for the concept. This is based on both the American-English and German mappings for the terms but goes beyond each of these inputs to create a new concept. The blend is more general than the original input spaces because it does not rely on the specific socio-political developments that have informed the culture-bound concepts in a historical perspective. Rather, it abstracts the crossculturally valid elements and combines them into the blended concept. These processes of blending concepts, even across cultures, are not a product of deliberate effort because: “Nearly all important thinking takes place outside of consciousness and is not available on introspection” (Fauconnier and Turner 2002: 33). However, in an analytical effort of completion of the input spaces, one could reflect on the historically informing spaces of 18 th century era of German Enlightenment and the American Declaration of Independence. In addition, one can also “run the blend” (Fauconnier and Turner 2002: 44) by reminding ourselves “that any point on the path in the blend projects back to counterpoints in the input spaces” (Fauconnier and Turner 2002: 44). Thus, one could discuss the reasons for emphasizing particular elements of the input spaces in the blend in the context of the emerging subjective third spaces of the L2 learner. Blended space theory, as developed by Fauconnier, Turner, and others, provides deep insights into the mind’s hidden complexities by persuasively explaining the mechanisms of creating novel meaning in the mind. Although blended space theory does not explicitly make reference to intercultural scenarios, it can be used in a particularly productive manner for intercultural L2 learning. During the process of learning the L2 in its cultural context over a sustained period of time, the input spaces, and in particular the generic space,

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change from being influenced by frames originating in one cultural tradition to frames which are increasingly based between cultures. This process, in turn, has repercussions for the level of subjectivity influencing the generic space, due to the structural loss of power of the monocultural frames. The subjective elements of the blended spaces also move in the direction of intercultural places so that these actually represent blends of intercultural blends, contributing to an intercultural network of blends available to the subjective mind of the L2 learner at a specific point in the development of intercultural competence (cf. Section 10.2). Blended space theory offers a constructive framework for conceptualizing the complex processes of mapping and blending which are necessary when trying to gain access to the linguistic, cultural, and social conceptualizations of the L2 speech community from the basis of internalized L1-mediated conceptualizations. The resulting blended spaces are not stable conceptual packets in the mind of the L2 learner, but are dynamic and partial structures that are constantly being revised and reconstructed in the ever more complex process of L2 learning. When conceptual blending is explicitly brought into the L2 learning process, for example, by discussing and reflecting upon the different input spaces and the interculturallyoriented generic space in their specific contribution to the construction of the intercultural blend for certain concepts, it can lead to enhanced critical language awareness and a deeper understanding of (inter-)cultural frames. At the same time, complex conceptual blends that infuse everyday instances of making meaning within and across cultures can be deconstructed and traced back to the different input spaces and the generic space, thus making the processes of constructing intracultural, but also intercultural, meaning more transparent for the L2 learner.

5 Imposing structure on language-in-use: From language philosophy to discourse analysis In the preceding chapter, it was shown that language does not only follow immanent rules of grammar, syntax, and phonetics, but that spoken language is always embodied and situated. It is not very difficult to learn the system of a second language, because it is finite. It is much more difficult to learn conceptual units and structures inherent in language use that have historically evolved in a speech community and in a socioculture; this is particularly true for conceptual metaphors and frames which are used to construct conceptual spaces and their blends. It is even more difficult to learn the appropriate social, cultural, pragmatic, and discursive use of a second language because the graded influence of these categories on interaction is very complex. In order to understand and interact appropriately (i.e., neither dismissively nor submissively) on the topic of juju (‘black magic’) in West Africa, for example, a good knowledge of the different forms of juju, its origins, structures, and implications, would be a necessary precondition. At the same time, one would have to have a good grasp of the interlocutors’ positioning on the topic and towards one another and of the tacit knowledge inferred by the interactants, for instance, in terms of seriousness, irony, or sarcasm. And finally, the outsider also would need to display a high level of sensitivity towards the goals and ambitions of the interactants, as indexed in the conversation. These complex extralinguistic factors and configurations are surely not learnable from textbooks alone. Only participation in the social life of the other socioculture can generate this kind of sensitive, comprehensive, and flexible background knowledge needed for successful, accepted, and valued contributions to L2 interaction. The complexity of social life, of cultural patterns, and of pragmatic situations can hardly be channeled into neat and easily classifiable chunks that the L2 learner can effortlessly memorize and conveniently draw upon in communication or the processes of blending spaces in intercultural interaction. However, there have been many attempts in language philosophy, in anthropology, and in linguistics to develop certain approaches and instruments for the analysis of intersubjective communication. Some of these approaches have been more influential than others, and in this chapter we will look at some of the models of analyzing language-in-use which may provide some assistance to the L2 learner in his or her efforts to grasp the finer strands of ongoing construction of meaning in interaction.

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5.1 Ordinary language philosophy 5.1.1 Language games The linguistic turn in philosophy was initiated in the late nineteenth century by the German mathematician Gottlob Frege (1848–1925) who considered the logical shortcomings and imperfections of language a hindrance for precise arithmetic thinking. Due to inferences in language, he “found the inadequacy of language to be an obstacle; no matter how unwieldy the expressions I was ready to accept, I was less and less able, as the relations became more and more complex, to attain the precision that my purpose required” (Frege 1967: 5–6; emphasis added). Consequently, Frege took to examining language from a mathematical-logical point of view as an integral part of his larger scientific project of logicism. Frege’s intention was to reconstruct language in a logical manner for mathematical and philosophical purposes because ordinary language contained too many potentially misleading superficial similarities to be used for precise logic. This led him to deduce that sentences denote, logically speaking, either true or false meaning (referring to statements, thoughts, and ideas which he understood as objects in their role in logic), an assumption that was difficult to prove, given the fact that words only point to meanings but do not contain them and that language is a sociocultural tool. Some decades later, Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) turned his attention to ordinary language which Frege had dismissed as logically deficient. In his work Philosophical Investigations (1953), Wittgenstein acknowledges the vagueness and lack of precision of ordinary language, yet attempts to provide meticulous analyses of the grammar of ordinary language in order to describe both the implications inherent in the actual use of language and the external conditions under which use of language makes sense. This includes the necessity to portray tacit knowledge which we normally take for granted. Language must be understood properly, that is, with all its potential shortcomings, because of its development into the form of language that obviously is viable for optimal interaction and construction of self, Other, and others. In direct contrast to Frege, he suggests: “When I talk about language (words, sentences, etc.) I must speak the language of every day. Is this language somehow too coarse and material for what we want to say? Then how is another one to be constructed?” (Wittgenstein 1953: § 120; emphasis in the original). In a similar approach to Bakhtin, Wittgenstein considers language, not as an isolated system of signs, but as a system deeply embedded in social use. Hence, he firmly locates the meaning of a sign or word in its actual use by stating that “the meaning of a word is its use in the language” (Wittgenstein 1953: §43), and: “Every sign by itself seems dead. What gives it life? – In use it is alive”

148 | 5 Imposing structure on language-in-use (Wittgenstein 1953: § 432). The meaning of a word and of a sign is derived from its use by other people. Our principal point of reference for meaning is not private experience or a dictionary entry, but each other: “So one might say: the ostensive definition explains the use – the meaning – of the word when the overall role of the word in language is clear. Thus if I know that someone means to explain a colour-word to me the ostensive definition ‘That is called “sepia”’ will help me to understand the word” (Wittgenstein 1953: § 30). According to Wittgenstein, the actual use of language is governed by the rules of language games (Sprachspiele) which are in turn derived from the social practice of a speech community in a historical dimension. Hence, language and social performance are intricately interwoven in the language game. Wittgenstein suggests that different language games have their own distinctive grammars, just as different games (for instance, chess, soccer, badminton, cricket, etc.) have their own rules. And just as ordinary games have no mega-rules which can be applied to all games, language games cannot be regulated by some sort of master-game; rather, they are irreducible and have their own rules, just like ordinary games. Although language games are obviously determined by their rules, it would be a mistake, according to Wittgenstein, to think of rule-following as a fundamental structure. To follow a rule, be it in the games of language or chess, is just custom and tradition (cf. Wittgenstein 1953: § 199). However, when playing any game, including a language game, one can make a mistake by applying a rule wrongly. Hence Wittgenstein infers a paradox: “no course of action could be determined by a rule, because every course of action can be made out to accord with the rule” (Wittgenstein 1953: § 201). Rules cannot be identified by instructions; rather, they can be identified through the common practices of those who participate in the game, which include reference to rule-books and precedents (cf. Wittgenstein 1953: § 199). For the use of language in social contexts, this means that the rules which characterize the concepts expressed are those manifested by the sociocultural practices of the speakers or writers engaged in the language game. In fact, we can only participate in social practice when we have a certain mastery of the language game. With complete mastery remaining unachievable, the levels of mastery or competence vary from person to person. Wittgenstein (1953: § 31) explains that knowing what the figure of the king is in chess does, not automatically implies that one knows the rules of the game of chess, that is, how the figure of the king is moved properly. Also, the material and shape of the figure itself is irrelevant as long as all players agree that it actually represents the king, even if it is represented by just a match or a cork. If one equates the figure of the king in chess with that of a word in language, as Wittgenstein (1953: § 108) does, the need for learning or acquiring the rules of the language game in the process of playing the game

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is essential. For children growing up into a speech community, this is an incidental and tacit process which is part of their socialization. But if one is learning a second language, it is obvious that the other language game has to be learned, including the rules, by using the second language, or playing the other game, not according to the L1 rules but by applying the L2 game rules. However, there are important differences, as no two games follow the same rules. Therefore, it makes no sense to refer to the rules of the first language game when learning a L2; ideally, the L2 learner must learn the other language in its pragmatic and social context from the perspective of tradition and use, as applied by the players of the other language game. The level of understanding and mastery of the second language game, that is, the appropriate use of relevant terms and concepts, the understanding of rules and their explanation, and the application of appropriate register in Discourses and genres, becomes evident in the actual sociolinguistic practices as a (second) language user by (inter-)acting in the L2 cultural and social contexts. Wherever immersion in the L2 society and culture is impossible, for example, in institutionalized L2 learning, a rich learning environment with regard to a multiplicity of learning opportunities has to be provided to mimic the L2 environment. However, this does not imply that the L2 classroom is by definition deficient compared to the L2 immersion. The L2 classroom can provide a didactically and methodologically more purposeful approach to the L2 learning of a particular group of L2 learners (in terms of age, interests, levels of engagement, etc.) by orienting the learning efforts to their specific zones of proximal development (cf. Section 9.5). It can provide a structured and secure space for learners to explore and reflect upon alternative realities, which are accessed through the L2, and blended with internalized cultural traditions, values, and worldviews.

5.1.2 Speech act theory Wittgenstein’s emphasis on the grammar of ordinary language games has generated a broader approach to analyze ordinary language. Linguists and language philosophers such as Karl Bühler, Roman Jakobson, Charles Morris, John Austin, and John R. Searle approached the analysis of spoken communication from a philosophical angle critical of logical positivist philosophers, such as Frege, Moore, Russell, and others who viewed everyday language as somewhat deficient. The British language philosopher John L. Austin, for instance, observes that everyday language is an extremely efficient and smooth medium of communication for ordinary people. Therefore, he argues, analysts should not strive to rid everyday language of its imperfections, but should focus rather on understanding how

150 | 5 Imposing structure on language-in-use people manage to communicate efficiently with ordinary language, since it is used successfully by ordinary people to cope with a myriad of situations in everyday life. Austin focuses on ordinary language, not only to provide an alternative to positivism, but also because he understands ordinary language as a conceptual legacy with socio-historical and phylogenetic dimensions. “[O]ur common stock of words embodies all the distinctions men have found worth drawing, and the connexions they have found worth marking in the lifetime of many generations” (Austin 1946: 129–130, cited in Thomas 1995: 31). This means that ordinary language carries with it conceptualizations and distinctions, such as ordering, inviting, or requesting, which have developed over generations. Therefore, they must be important to the users of that language in a social dimension. From these reflections, Austin concludes that language is not reducible to semantic function but that it has an important additional function, namely the performative dimension. When someone says I hereby declare you man and wife, then this person not only speaks, but at the same time performs the social, and legally binding, action of marrying two people; of course, not everyone can utter these words with the intended effect, only those who have been institutionally legitimized to carry out these actions can do so. Thus, there must be certain conditions that have to be fulfilled if the performative force of a speech act can be socially successful. However, sometimes speech acts result in the failure of their performative intent, which Austin describes as these speech acts being “infelicitous” (Austin 1962: 14). Therefore, there have to exist certain felicity conditions for speech acts to be successful. When examining social conventions supporting performatives, it is obvious that there is a gradient between performative actions that are highly institutionalized (for example, a judge pronouncing a verdict), through to less formal acts of everyday life such as greeting, warning, thanking, etc. If speech acts are treated as social actions, then there cannot be abstract truthconditions isolated from social contexts. Hence, Austin’s best-known book carries the programmatic title How to Do Things with Words (Austin 1962), emphasizing the capacity of speech acts to create social realities. Thus, Austin is interested, not in analyzing continuous discourse, but in the analysis of isolated speech acts. The speech act is differentiated into three forces, the locutionary (actual uttering of meaningful words), the illocutionary (intention or force behind words) and perlocutionary forces (effect of illocution on hearer) (cf. Searle 1969: 22–25). The notion of an illocutionary force of speech acts refers to the concept that every utterance carries with it the speaker’s intent to achieve a particular purpose, and that this can be analyzed by interpreting the utterance. The American philosopher John R. Searle developed aspects of Austin’s work further by attempting to systemize it. In what can be seen as an expansion of Wittgenstein’s notion of language games, he proposes a more detailed classification

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of the variety of major categories of speech acts and extends the rules to the include verbs such as requesting, asserting, questioning, thanking, advising, warning, greeting, congratulating. He also tries to extend the analysis of speech acts into the immediate social context in which it is produced. Searle (1976: 10–16) suggests that, while there is a myriad of language-specific speech acts, all speech acts can be categorized into five main types: (1) representatives (committing the speaker to the truth of the expressed proposition; for example, asserting or concluding, as in John smokes a lot); (2) directives (attempts by the speaker to get the addressee to do something, for example, requesting or questioning, as in Get out of this room!); (3) commissives (committing the speaker to some future course of action, for example, promising, offering, threatening, as in I promise to pay you tomorrow); (4) expressives (expressing a psychological state, for example, thanking, apologizing, welcoming, congratulating, as in Congratulations on your promotion), and (5) declaratives (effecting immediate changes in the institutional state of affairs and tending to rely on elaborate extralinguistic institutions, for example, excommunicating, christening, marrying, declaring war, firing from employment, etc.). Searle uses a mix of criteria to establish these five types, including the speech act’s illocutionary force (the purpose of the act), its “fit” in the world (relationship between language and external world), the psychological state of the speaker (speaker’s state of mind), and the content of the act (propositional content of act). He also further develops Austin’s felicity conditions into a classification of conditions underlying a successful speech act. Searle (1969: 66–67) distinguishes between preparatory, propositional, sincerity, and essential conditions for a speech act and explicates these conditions for different types of speech acts, for instance, for questioning (cf. Searle 1969: 66) where S is the speaker, H the hearer, and P the proposition expressed in the speech act: a. Preparatory 1: S does not know the answer for a yes/no question, does not know whether P is true or false, for an elicitative or WH-question, does not know the missing information. b. Preparatory 2: It is not obvious to either S or H that H will provide the information at the time without being asked. c. Propositional: Any proposition or propositional function. d. Sincerity: S wants this information. e. Essential: The question counts as an attempt to elicit this information from H. Useful as this prototypical characterization may be, it certainly is not applicable to all types of questions. For example, rhetorical questions, ironic remarks, questions by a teacher in the classroom, or by a lawyer in court, do not follow these conditions for questions.

152 | 5 Imposing structure on language-in-use Although speech act theory transformed the analysis of language with the fundamental insight that use of language must be functionally motivated, rather than formally defined, it has also been criticized in several respects. For example, there is no clear relationship between the discourse function (illocutionary force) and the grammatical form (type of clause) (cf. Eggins and Slade 1997: 40). Austin’s performative hypothesis, namely that only performative verbs could be used to perform actions, is untenable because of the lack of formal criteria for distinguishing performative verbs from other verbs, and hence many acts are performed “using language where it would be impossible, very odd or very unusual to use a performative verb” (Thomas 1995: 46). For instance, it would be very unusual to explicitly announce that one is insulting someone by uttering the phrase I (hereby) insult you! The speech acts of insulting, hinting, boasting, etc., are typically performed without using a performative verb. And finally, Searle focuses on the description of speech act verbs, although he claims to provide the rules for complete speech acts (cf. Thomas 1995: 99). Thomas arrives at a conclusion which could be applied to most attempts of linguistics to find rules for interpersonal conversation: “The whole approach to describing speech acts in terms of rules was misconceived. Within linguistics there is a powerful push towards formalization; formalisms give an impression of intellectual vigour which, when applied to most areas of pragmatics, has proved to be almost entirely illusory” (Thomas 1995: 107). In their analysis of speech acts, Austin and Searle applied a philosophical – rather than linguistic – perspective in that they focused on the interpretation – rather than the production – of utterances in discourse, thus differing from Bakhtin’s approach. Despite the criticism that could be leveled against their work in terms of the classification of speech acts, it contributed to the rise of pragmalinguistics, which in turn resulted in the communicative approach of second language teaching and learning methodology. The communicative approach tries to link speech (albeit frequently formulaic speech) to definable socio-pragmatic contexts, such as at the restaurant or in the post office, in order to prepare L2 learners for the communicative demands they will face when encountering these situations in the other speech community.

5.1.3 The cooperative principle and maxims of conversation Paul Grice (1975) developed ordinary language philosophy further by closely examining the implications of utterances. By identifying a distinction between conversational implicature and literal meaning, Grice made connections to the work of language philosophers who are concerned with truth-conditions. A lot of meaning can be intentionally implied in saying something. However, how one says it

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and what one does not say can be more important than the message itself. For example, by saying The car looks black, the speaker implies that he or she doubts that the car in question is indeed black. If he or she thought it were black, he or she would have said The car is black. This point raises the question of appearance and reality which was largely overlooked by language philosophers of the truthconditional school since they did not make this distinction. Therefore, they did not discuss the presupposition that, if something looks black, it actually is black. If a speaker wants to avoid or retrospectively cancel implications without incoherence, he or she could simply say that The car looks black, and I have no doubt but that it is black. Hence, implications are an important feature of conversation, and Grice (1975; 1979) has developed a sophisticated account of conversational implicature in terms of principles and maxims – rather than rules – in order to account for the interpretations of interlocutors in a conversation. The use of principles have in this context an advantage over rules; they are more flexible since they can be invoked to different degrees, and are thus more adequate for the analysis of dynamic linguistic contexts, such as spoken interaction: “Rules are all or nothing, principles are more or less. Rules are exclusive, principles can co-occur. Rules are constitutive, principles are regulative. Rules are definite, principles are probalistic. Rules are conventional, principles are motivated” (Thomas 1995: 107). Thus, Grice’s approach to using principles for analyzing communication promises to avoid the misconception of forcing socio-functional categories and structures into mechanistic sets of rules. Grice assumes that there seem to be sufficient regularities in the inference-forming behavior of interlocutors to exploit this by implying something in verbal interaction, rather than stating it explicitly. At the center of Grice’s pragmatic approach to conversation analysis is the co-operative principle, a kind of tacit agreement by interactants to cooperate in communication, which states that in conversational interaction, the participants work on the assumption that a certain set of rules is in operation (for example, genre, narrative, Discourse), unless they receive indications to the contrary. Hence, Grice advises participants in interaction, “Make your conversational contributions such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged” (Grice 1975: 45). This general co-operative principle is then operationalized into four maxims of conversation which Grice (1975: 45–46) takes to govern all meaningful interaction (and therefore can be learned and used by L2 learners): a. QUALITY: Try to make your contribution one that is true. 1. Do not say what you believe to be false. 2. Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.

154 | 5 Imposing structure on language-in-use b.

QUANTITY:

c. d.

RELEVANCE: MANNER:

Make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current purpose of the exchange). Do not make your contribution more informative than is required. Be relevant. (i) Be perspicuous (transparent and clear). (ii) Avoid obscurity of expression. (iii) Avoid ambiguity. (iv) Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity). (v) Be orderly.

Grice assumes that in conversation the interlocutors are communicating under the mutual assumption that the utterances are made along a number of parameters, namely that the truth is being told and the background knowledge of interactants is taken into consideration in utterances. Grice suggests that these assumptions are generally adhered to in communication, and that they have a guiding influence on the conversation. However, this is not necessarily the case, as the speaker might intentionally tell lies (hence violating the first maxim), or he or she may report on irrelevant events or experiences in order to avoid silence, and the listener may – or may not – realize this. In his theoretical approach, however, Grice takes for granted that interlocutors operate on the assumption that, as a rule, the maxims will be observed. He also assumes, as Fairclough (1995: 46) points out, that conversations occur co-operatively between interlocutors as equals, thus ignoring potential inequalities in the power relationship between them. Additionally, as Frow (2005: 79) criticizes, Grice understands speech as purely rational exchange of information, thereby ignoring other potential functions, such as sarcastic, rhetorical, or ironic. Furthermore, Grice’s examples of utterances consist almost exclusively of short sentences or exchanges that are isolated from the broader communicative and social context, thus limiting the sense-making potential of certain kinds of immediate and pragmatic information. And lastly, Grice (1979) characterizes a speaker’s meaning as an overt intention to cause a certain cognitive effect on the part of the listener (cf. Chapters 5 & 6). This implies that the speaker’s meaning is an intention or mental state. However, “the mental states of others cannot be simply perceived or decoded, but must be inferred from their behaviour, together with background information” (Sperber and Wilson 2008: 87). This includes the subjective perception of unintended signals on the part of the addressee which the speaker sent out (in the perception of the listener) and to which the addressee attaches meaning.

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This implies that Grice’s model provides no valid understanding of the complex processes by which meanings, values, emotions, and truth-effects are shaped and constrained by genre, narrative, or Discourse. Consequently, the general principles (cooperation; relevance) and the more specific maxims are too sweeping to explain how particular kinds of information are implied in certain contexts (cf. Frow 2005: 80). Hence Gricean pragmatics, although providing useful tools for heuristic purposes, imply an idealized concept of conversations as homogenous, conflict-free, and equal sites of verbal interaction that blatantly ignores the potential for conflict, chaos, difference, and asymmetry in power inherent in interaction. Thus, its value for L2 learners is ultimately rather limited; however, it has the potential to focus the awareness of L2 learners on the complexities of interaction, and the relevance of the concept of implication for interaction can clearly be learned in this context.

5.2 Some linguistic approaches to communication 5.2.1 Communicative competence and contextualization cues The notion of dynamic cultural, social, and pragmatic contexts for communication was elaborated upon by sociolinguists and ethnographers who devised analytical concepts, such as contextualization cues. The sociolinguist Dell Hymes and the linguistic anthropologist John J. Gumperz have been leading this field of research into the use of language in the social contexts of everyday life. The basic assumption of this approach to research is contained in this statement: Underlying the diversity of speech within communities and in the conduct of individuals are systematic relations, relations that, just as social and grammatical structure, can be the object of qualitative enquiry. (. . . ) A general theory of the interaction of language and social life must encompass the multiple relations between linguistic means and social meaning. The relations within a particular community or personal repertoire are an empirical problem, calling for a mode of description that is jointly ethnographic and linguistic. (Hymes 1972a: 39)

On this basis of the social and ethnographic situation of speech production, Chomsky’s (1965: 3) notion of linguistic competence has been criticized as too narrow because it operates with the notion of an ideal speaker or hearer acting within a rule-governed linguistic system in an artificial space, cut off from social, cultural, discursive, and pragmatic contexts. Chomsky purposely restricts his analysis to the linguistic system: “[A] grammar is an account of competence. It (. . . ) attempts to account for the ability of a speaker to understand an arbitrary

156 | 5 Imposing structure on language-in-use sentence of his language (. . . ). [I]f it is a linguistic grammar it aims to discover and exhibit the mechanisms that make this achievement possible” (Chomsky 1974: 73). In response to the limitations of Chomsky’s notion of linguistic competence, Hymes (1972b) developed the broader notion of communicative competence which takes the social and pragmatic context of situated speech into consideration. David Crystal defines communicative competence as the ability to produce and understand sentences which are appropriate to the context in which they occur – what [speakers/hearers] need to know in order to communicate effectively in socially distinct settings. Communicative competence, then, subsumes the social determinants of linguistic behaviour, including such environmental matters as the relationship between speaker and hearer, and the pressures which stem from the time and place of speaking. (Crystal 1980: 73)

The relevance of this notion of communicative competence lies in the fact that the interlocutors are not only seen as more or less competent speakers of a language, but as social actors interacting with others within complex communities which are organized by a variety of social institutions and who, as such, interact through a network of intersecting sets of expectations, beliefs, desires, and values which are structured by generic configurations such as genre, narrative, and Discourse, and generated by the blending of conceptual spaces. Communicative competence is not so much an intrapersonal property (as Chomsky’s notion of linguistic competence would suggest) but a dynamic interpersonal construct that can only be examined by means of overt performance between speakers in the process of communication, as embedded in the broader Discursive, social, and cultural context. However, communicative competence is difficult to analyze with theoretical models and difficult to teach and learn in second language instruction, as it is tied to the specific communicative situation, the interactants and the force of interaction, tacit sociocultural knowledge, time, space, etc. Communicative competence contains not only linguistic competence in Chomsky’s sense, but, according to Savignon (1983), also discourse competence (the ability to connect sentences in stretches of discourse and to form a series of meaningful utterances), sociolinguistic competence (“an understanding of the social context in which language is used: the roles of the participants, the information they share, and the function of the interaction” [Savignon 1983: 37]), and strategic competence (strategies for maintaining conversation even in difficult circumstances, e.g., when an interlocutor does “not know how to express a point, leading to paraphrase, circumlocution, repetition, hesitation, avoidance, and guessing, as well as shifts in register and style” [Savignon 1983: 40–41]). Bachmann (1990) introduces further competences, for instance “organizational competence” and “pragmatic competence”

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(Bachmann 1990: 87). However, this model also has its deficiencies. For instance, it fails to include notions such as the voice or force of the utterance, while the previous linguistic, social, and cultural development of the subject in terms of acquiring competences which may be deficient in some aspects, is neglected. Due to the difficulties of defining a sufficient set of sub-competences to comprehensively capture the complex processes at play in interaction, the more general term communicative competence seems better suited to emphasizing the fact that there are social, cultural, pragmatic, and subjective forces at work in interpersonal communication. These are typically too specific to allow for the development of a comprehensive set of rules, or even principles, which can explain these complex forces and processes. The linguist John Gumperz took on the challenge of explaining the more tacit configurations by focusing on subtle contexts influencing the process of constructing meaning in conversations, such as prosody. He approached this terrain of linguistic research from an anthropological perspective by analyzing these features of conversation with interactants from different sociocultural backgrounds (including interethnic groups such as British and Indian speakers of English living in Britain, cf. Gumperz 1982). Applying this cross-cultural approach, Gumperz could demonstrate that discursive features such as intonation can be interpreted by participants in the conversation quite differently. For instance, while some interactants may interpret the intonation of certain utterances as rude or aggressive behavior, the identical intonational pattern in conversation might be interpreted by others as indicating consideration and deference. The interpretation of the same conversational units in terms of intonation is therefore also dependent on the sociocultural background of the interactants, which may guide their understanding of the content and context of the situation. Gumperz concludes that our understanding of a communicative situation is to some extent guided by contextualization cues which he defines as “any feature of linguistic form that contributes to the signalling of contextual presuppositions” (Gumperz 1982: 131). The contextualization cues in discourse are not the same for every individual participating in conversation; they are shaped by tacit cultural background knowledge which is applied to the understanding of the conversation. “What we perceive and retain in our mind is a function of our culturally determined predisposition to perceive and assimilate” (Gumperz 1982: 4). On that basis, idiomatically competent participants in conversation can use expressions and characteristics of expressions such as voice, pitch, and prosody to intentionally create certain contexts of communication and subtexts of meaning which then have to be inferred by the receiver, for example, by using exaggerated impetus in uttering certain words or phrases. Speakers and listeners use contextualization cues in order to make certain cognitive, social, and discursive schemata available to

158 | 5 Imposing structure on language-in-use the interactants for agreeable understanding. Gumperz refers to this implicit and constructive cooperative element in interaction when he states, “Do not verbalize explicitly, what the conversation is about, rely on the listeners’ ability to use this background knowledge. If he is a friend, he will guess what is wanted” (Gumperz 1982: 138–139). This maxim can only be exercised in recurrent pattern combinations of contextualization cues, effortlessly establishing a shared understanding of the situation and developing a shared pool of knowledge, despite the fact that there is no guarantee for successful communication since so many factors are influencing the construction of meaning in conversation. These foundational differences in cultural background make successful intercultural communication extremely difficult, since contextualization cues are either absent or inadequate for the appropriate interpretation of context. Contextualization cues can, however, in broadening Gumperz’ 1982 definition, also be non-verbal, for example, clothes, certain moves, or non-linguistic utterances, such as laughter or silence. However, this fact complicates the solving of the “crossword puzzle” (Levinson 1995: 238) of conversation, especially if one takes into consideration possible instances where something is perceived, but not intended to be meant, or on the contrary, where something is implied as a contextualization cue, but not inferred as a cue for conversation. If one considers the close link between language and culture, the notion of communicative competence can be expanded to include cultural elements to a greater extent than the notion of sociolinguistic competence would suggest. Cultural elements are usually tacit in language use; they do not rise to consciousness unless they become problematic in interaction. This is frequently the case when interaction takes place across languages and cultures. Consequently, the notion of intercultural competence has emerged.¹ The concept of intercultural competence is much broader than those of linguistic or communicative competence because “the term goes beyond aspects of skill and performance, embracing deeper notions of disposition, intention, motive and personal identity” (Fleming 2009: 3). However, the notion of intercultural competence is not in conflict with that of communicative competence. Rather, it underlies the communicative elements with (inter-)cultural dimensions of subjective construal in the process of L2 learning, as is reflected by the term “intercultural communicative competence” (Byram 1997: 32).

1 This concept will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 10.

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5.2.2 Analyzing discourse A less comprehensive, yet more focused approach on isolated and limited aspects of interaction is provided by Conversation Analysis (CA), Discourse Analysis (DA), and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). These approaches do not try to develop an overall model of linguistic and sociocultural dynamics, as Wittgenstein, Austin, Searle, and Grice attempted, but intentionally limit their focus of analysis to micro-aspects of conversation with the goal of arriving at rules and principles of the communicative micro-structure in its social context. For this reason, they may be of value to second language teaching and learning methodologies; they have the potential to provide the L2 learner with rules and principles of how to appropriately engage in L2 interactions. While speech act theory applies a philosophical approach to the interpretation of units of conversation and Grice approaches the analysis of conversation from a pragmatic angle, CA, DA, and CDA are much narrower in their approach by trying to (re-)construct a framework for the microanalysis of the linguistic structure of conversational exchange, also taking the pragmatic context of the discourse into consideration. This context is not devoid of social value because it is itself a semiotic construct, for example, register, genre, or Discourse. Conversation analysis, as a methodological research approach, focuses on empirically-based accounts of observable conversational behaviors of interlocutors which are embedded in social action in general, and talk-in-interaction in particular. Conversation is understood to be an organized, socially structured event. CA aims to analyze how interlocutors behave and orient their use of language to certain behavioral practices, as they co-construct ongoing conversation in real time. Conversational partners respond in spontaneous and creative, yet typically highly structured ways to the continuously evolving text and context of the interaction. The activities of getting attention, taking the floor, topic nomination, topic development, topic termination, turn-taking, topic clarification, repair, topic shifting, avoidance, and interruptions are all important research areas in CA. In focusing on these mechanisms inherent in conversation, the social context of analysis is restricted to the immediate contextual influences on communicative behavior. The emphasis of CA is clearly on the analysis of talk-in-interaction without resorting to contextualization. CA basically differentiates between two main types of talk-in-interaction: ordinary conversation and institutional talk. Ordinary conversation refers to speech exchanges such as everyday chitchat that occurs between friends, neighbors, and acquaintances, which mainly serves to maintain the social fabric between these interlocutors. Utterances in ordinary conversation often appear in “adjacency pairs,” for example, questions and answers in formulae of greetings and

160 | 5 Imposing structure on language-in-use responses (“Hi, how are you?” “Fine, thanks, and you?”). Certain responses are socially expected or preferred, while others are considered to be inappropriate. By paying close attention to these features, a lot can be learned about cultural norms and social relationships. In contrast to ordinary conversation, institutional talk tends to be more formalized, for instance, classroom talk, press conferences, doctor-patient conversations, courtroom interactions, etc. Institutional talk is strongly guided by the dominant Discourse, it is oriented towards a certain outcome, and it positions the participants in relation to one another. Knowledge of the principles, linguistic and behavioral, of institutional talk is part of the language competence of every adult native speaker of a language; however, in L2 curricula, they remain largely sidelined. The reason for this ignorance may be the implicit assumption that institutional talk and its guiding Discourse are identical across cultures. Obviously, this assumption, while possibly sustainable for certain aspects of Discourses across closely interrelated cultures, is plainly wrong in a broader context. Conversation analysis, which has developed from ethnomethodological approaches (e.g., Garfinkel 1967), originally endeavored to discover and construct an analytical grid which could explain certain micro-structural patterns in conversation. One of the very early proponents of CA, Harvey Sacks, defined the ultimate goal of conversational analytical methodology as follows: “What one ought to seek is to build an apparatus which will provide for how it is that any activities, which members do in such a way as to be recognizable as such to other members, are done, and done recognizably” (Sacks 1972: 332). Several decades later, however, such an apparatus still does not exist, and should it ever be constructed, the question has to be asked what its exact purpose should be, if it is not tied in with the broader social context of verbal interaction, as it takes place and the cultural background of the interlocutors which provides, among other information, the contextualization cues. Conversation analysis, however, has been very successful in developing a sustainable theoretical framework for some micro-structural patterns of conversation from an analytical perspective which does not treat “participant orientations, relevancies, and intersubjectivity (. . . ) as states of mind that somehow lurk behind the interaction, but as local and sequential accomplishments that must be grounded in empirically observable conversational conduct” (Markee and Kasper 2004: 495). This approach has been partially successful for analyzing classroom interaction as a specific mode of institutional talk which is characterized by an unequal power system in terms of interaction between teachers and learners, where teachers have a privileged position to assign topics and the right to speak to learners. Furthermore, teachers have the right to evaluate the quality of pupils’ contributions to the emerging interaction through initiating or providing repairs in terms

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of corrections and to initiate and end question-answer sequences. By providing micro-analyses of conversational turns, both in terms of co-construction of meaning and in terms of learners’ construction of social membership categories and identities on an emerging interactive basis, CA can contribute to a deeper understanding of the intersubjective construction of meaning in the L2 classroom. The advantage of such an emic approach is the use of “a grounded, social, and discoursal perspective on language, rather than an idealized, cognitive, sentencelevel understanding of what language is” (Markee and Kasper 2004: 495). This approach has the potential of analyzing the conversational construction of meaning and identities in the intersubjective space which is spread out between the interactants, in terms of turn-taking, sequence organization, and repair organization of talk in classroom interaction. Thus, cognition is seen not as subjectively internalized and therefore inaccessible competence, but as socially distributed and observable behavior. In his attempt to develop a learning tracking methodology for CA for second language acquisition (SLA), Markee (2008) tried to analyze how L2 learners deploy these intersubjective resources “that underlie all talk-ininteraction, combined with the co-occurrent organization of eye gaze and embodied actions – (. . . ) to co-construct with their locally enacted, progressively more accurate, fluent, and complex interactional repertoires in the L2” (Markee 2008: 406). While this research has excellent potential to analyze “the interactional architecture of discursive practices” (Markee and Kasper 2004: 495) which may be focused on a particular grammatical, morphological, lexical, pragmatic, cultural, or other L2-related items, it is of limited value for the analyses of broader processes of L2 learning and L2 acquisition because it does not relate to an explicit theory of language learning. It may account for the intersubjective learning of a particular L2 item by learners in a particular location and at a specific time, and these local insights might be combined in the long term to develop a CA-for-SLA theory, as Markee (2008) suggests. For the moment, however, this theory is just at the very beginning of being developed, and for the foreseeable future it cannot claim validity; it is also questionable if this emic (i.e., participant-relevant) CA-for-SLA research can transfer results to other social, institutional, spatial, language and culture-related contexts to lay the foundation for a L2 learning theory. If CA is already extremely difficult to use for the development of a L2 learning methodology, it is even more so for developing a theoretical framework for analyzing ordinary conversation which can be located in a huge range of settings with even more factors influencing the interaction and the interlocutors (in their conversational behavior). Due to the complex and potentially chaotic nature of the course of actual verbal interaction, conversation analysis has been criticized for three major drawbacks: it has a “lack of systemic analytical categories” as well as applying a “fragmentary focus” and providing a “mechanistic interpretation of

162 | 5 Imposing structure on language-in-use conversation” (Eggins and Slade 1997: 31). Eggins and Slade (1997) suggest that, due to its focus on isolated excerpts of speech, CA is limited in its ability to deal comprehensively with complete, sustained interactions. While Sacks used fragments to uncover the social meanings being achieved through talk (e.g. how affiliation is achieved, how category membership is determined), much subsequent work in CA has focused on more mechanistic concerns (e.g. the ‘precision timing’ of turn-taking, etc.). This has meant that the reality of conversations (that many are very long and indefinitely sustainable) has not been addressed. (Eggins and Slade 1997: 32)

Thus, CA is not in a position to provide a comprehensive analysis of conversation with inclusive meso-levels of structure and context, paying attention to all influencing factors. In view of these drawbacks of conversation analysis, Eggins and Slade (1997: 32) conclude that “a shift of orientation away from conversation as a form of social interaction that is incidentally verbal, and towards conversation as linguistic interaction that is fundamentally social” is needed for a more comprehensive analysis of conversation. This shift towards social and cultural aspects of conversation, however, begs the question as to how these potentially very wideranging social aspects can be analyzed in a more general, rule-generating manner. Hence, it is difficult to see what CA can contribute to L2 teaching and learning methodologies in terms of useful guidelines transcending micro-structure that is, of how to approach teaching and learning appropriate communicative behavior in L2 situations. Discourse analysis in the narrower sense tries to examine the relationship between the forms and functions of language by analyzing both the structure and the functions of spoken and written interaction in more rigidly structured varieties.² DA refers “to all forms of spoken interaction, formal and informal, and written texts of all kinds. So when we talk of ‘discourse analysis’ we mean analysis of any of these forms of discourse” (Potter and Wetherell 1987: 7). DA examines language as it is used in structured units larger than the sentence, for instance, discourses such as job interviews, classroom lessons, or doctor-patient interaction. Thus, discourse analysis focuses on inter-sentential discourse relations and on the structure of the discursive exchange which is seen as a basic unit of conversation. However, without taking the pragmatic contexts of discourse into consideration, communication can be very ambiguous. Conversely, conversation is

2 Discourse analysis has also developed into an approach of examining the way particular Discourses (with a capital “D”) have developed, for example, the Discourse of historiography, or of social science, by focusing on the possibilities of constructions of a viable “reality,” its societal anchoring, and its historical changes. In particular, DA analyzes the formations of Discourse, as reflected in texts which are set in social and institutional contexts and in other principles of order.

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marked by the exchanges between the interlocutors; the utterances of one participant are usually followed and built upon by the utterances of other participants. Therefore, DA promises to analyze actual discourse by paying attention to both the internal structure of the discourse, including the psychological influences of interlocutors, and the pragmatic (or external) context influencing discourse. However, since the context refers both to very complex psychological influences and highly structured situations, Levinson (1983: 287) criticizes DA for being based on “premature formalization” of structures and categories mainly derived from very restricted forms of formal discourse, such as classroom interaction, and subsequently transferred to spoken interaction in general. Bakhtinian notions of heteroglossia and polyphony, for example, are not considered in this approach. Thus, discourse analysis is also not in a position to provide comprehensive and reliable tools for analyzing spoken interaction. Therefore, it is also of no great value for L2 teaching and learning, at least not in the beginning and at intermediate levels. Critical Discourse Analysis takes a broader approach to analyzing spoken interaction in trying to take all influencing factors into consideration, including the social and cultural setting and power relations among the interlocutors. CDA understands written and spoken discourse as a form of social practice which not only reflects social relationships but actively constitutes and organizes them. Therefore, it tries to analyze the interrelation of linguistic means and concrete discursive acts on the one hand, and the interplay of discursive practice and political, social, and institutional “reality” on the other. The focus of interest for these critical analyses lies in examining the power over the discourse and the power within the discourse. Hence, CDA views discourse analysis as a “transdisciplinary activity” (Fairclough 1997: 4). It recognizes that language in spoken interaction is never neutral, that it always depends on a multitude of factors, including the motivation, intentions, and objectives of the interlocutors, the structure of the interaction and the processes of construing meaning; it is also structured to a large extent by social surroundings in terms of social domains, Discourses, genres, and institutional framework. According to Fairclough (1992: 63; emphasis added), discourse is “a form of social practice, rather than a purely individual activity or a reflex of situational variables.” Fairclough (1995) elaborates on the consequences of this view by suggesting that, “Viewing language use as social practice implies, first, that it is a mode of action (Austin, 1962; Levinson, 1983) and, secondly, that it is always a socially and historically situated mode of action, in a dialectical relationship with other facets of ‘the social life’ (its ‘social context’) – it is socially shaped, but it is also socially shaping, or constitutive” (Fairclough 1995: 131; emphasis in the original).

164 | 5 Imposing structure on language-in-use CDA views micro-actions, such as verbal interaction, and macro-social structures as inextricably linked because the latter influence the former and every action on the micro-level contributes to the reproduction of “macro structures” (Fairclough 1995: 34). Thus, Fairclough (1995: 35; emphasis in the original) criticizes the CA approach, because “it makes little sense to study verbal interactions as if they were unconnected with social structures.” One of the problems Fairclough identifies with approaches such as CA or Gricean pragmatics is that they construct conversation as speech events between consciously operating, independent, rational, social actors, who are co-operating in conversation in order to achieve certain goals through homogenous interactions. Such an idealized view, however, ignores the multi-faceted situational, cultural, and social influences on the situation, as well as the interdependence of views and the intersubjectivity of the interlocutors in their efforts to co-construct meaning, which might be done from positions of difference and conflict, rather than cooperation. Therefore, Fairclough suggests that there must be a “knowledge base” of four components which constitutes interlocutors’ background knowledge of the structures and orderly progress of interactions. These four components consist of the interlocutors’ mutual knowledge of language codes, of the principles or norms of language use, of the situation, and of the world (cf. Fairclough 1995: 33). Since this background knowledge is never shared to the exact same degree by the interlocutors, and since they all have different personal and discursive histories, there can be neither an immediate nor an identical understanding of the topics discussed in conversation. It is this difference, in its various degrees, based on only broadly shared patterns of language, society, and culture that brings spoken interaction and written texts to life. Difference also provides the motivation for interaction in which it is the motor for the collaborative effort to co-construct meaning on subjective, group, and social levels. Traditional approaches to analyzing verbal interaction typically fall short of embracing this wider sphere of influence; rather, they are concerned with the analysis of language in its usage at a micro-level. Some of the shortcomings of CA and CDA were exposed in the late 1990s by two of the leading representatives of these approaches: Emanuel Schlegoff, a theoretician in the CA tradition, and Margaret Wetherell, one of the proponents of CDA. Both highlight the shortcomings of the opposite approach, albeit from the perspective of the rival position. Each accuses the rival approach of “theoretical imperialism” because it allegedly ignores the voice of the subjects of their enquiries and focuses instead on their respective theoretical framework in analyzing the conversation and discourse respectively. Schlegoff alleges that critical discourse analysis,

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allows students, investigators, or external observers to deploy the terms which preoccupy them in describing, explaining, critiquering, etc. the events and texts to which they turn their attention. There is no guaranteed place for the endogenous orientations of the participants in those events; there is no principled method for establishing those orientations; there is no commitment to be constrained by those orientations. However well-intentioned and welldisposed toward the participants (. . . ) there is a kind of theoretical imperialism involved here. (Schlegoff 1997: 167, emphasis in the original)

Margaret Wetherell responds to this critique by pointing out that conversation analysis practices theoretical imperialism in its own way: [F]or Schlegoff, participant orientation seems to mean only what is relevant for the participants in this particular conversational moment. Ironically, of course, it is the conversation analyst in selecting for analysis part of a conversation or continuing interaction who defines this relevance for the participant. In restricting the analyst’s gaze to this fragment, previous conversations, even previous turns in the same continuing conversation become irrelevant for the analyst but also, by dictat, for the participants. We don’t seem to have escaped, therefore, from the imposition of theorists’ categories and concerns. (Wetherell 1998: 403)

This debate between Schlegoff and Wetherell highlights a problem common to all theoretical approaches of analyzing intersubjective interaction. The factors and configurations influencing the interactive behavior of the interlocutors are so manifold and complex (for instance, psychological factors, or the history of intersubjective conversations) that a generalized theoretical framework for analyzing these influences must always fall short of adequately capturing them in their complexity and interplay. In a broader sense, there are also other relevant aspects for the analysis of interaction which are not sufficiently taken into consideration by CA, DA, or CDA, for instance, nonverbal aspects which may be important for the ongoing interaction. These nonverbal aspects are particularly relevant for language functions where social contact is important, emphasizing not so much what is communicated, but how it is communicated. The means by which this can be conveyed include body language, eye contact, physical distance or proximity, gestures, artifacts (for example, clothes or makeup), and olfactory aspects (such as perspiration or perfumes). These nonverbal aspects of communication can be very subtle, and are frequently subconsciously deployed. In addition, they are highly culturespecific, frequently also specific to sociolects (age groups) and dialects (regional variations), and therefore cannot be deployed universally. Although the theoretical categorization of language-in-use has certainly helped to make some sense of the messy and dynamic reality of the structures of conversation, some of these analytical approaches have sacrificed the potential richness of meaning in interaction for the sake of a tidy system of rules. At first

166 | 5 Imposing structure on language-in-use glance, these rules may be useful for L2 learners, for example, with regard to sociocultural norms of indirectness versus directness of speaking. For instance, in Germany meaning is sometimes conveyed much more directly in conversation than in England; while in Germany it is perfectly acceptable to deploy a direct no in conversation, in England a more indirect utterance such as I am not sure would be more appropriate to use, although both utterances ultimately carry the same meaning. These socioculturally situated and subjectively deployed traditions can be analyzed in CA, DA, or CDA, and can subsequently be used as principles to be mediated in L2 pedagogy. At second glance, however, there seems to be a tendency in these analytical approaches to discourse that Schlegoff (1997: 167) describes as “theoretical imperialism,” that is, the tendency of the theorist to impose relatively narrow rules on potentially rich conversation (in terms of direction, invocation of social status, shared memories, etc.). These rules may be of some use to L2 pedagogy, but if they fall short of capturing all influencing factors on conversation they may be misconceived. Therefore, it seems necessary to reverse the risk of theoretical imperialism in the analysis of ongoing processes in the construction of meaning in interactive processes. Rather than trying to establish a theoretical framework and then applying it to real life conversations, it would be more viable to focus on the broader situational realization of speech acts or communication during the construction of meaning and then trying to establish a comprehensive understanding of it for the purpose of L2 learning. This approach focuses on momentarily relevant factors influencing particular communicative moves without claiming to construct decontetxualized theoretical rules for the conduct of discourse.

5.3 Activity theory A very comprehensive theoretical approach that aims at overcoming the theoretical imperialism of CA, DA, and CDA is activity theory, which holds that all activity establishes meaning. Although language is a very powerful and versatile tool, it mainly mediates activities. Therefore, activities have conceptual and historical primacy because people relate to the external world by actions and activities (cf. Wells 1999: 47). The beginnings of activity theory can be traced back to Leontiev (1981a) who, drawing on Marxist theories, assumes that activities have a fundamental influence on shaping the consciousness of the human being. “Consciousness is not given from the beginning and it is not produced by nature: consciousness is a product of society, it is produced” (Leontiev 1981b: 56). Like Vygotsky, he assumes that consciousness is not constituted by autistic and disembodied cognitive acts;

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rather, consciousness is located in everyday practice and it is constituted, developed, and influenced by the tools, semiotic and otherwise, that we use in order to mediate our experiences, memories, and activities. Agency, individual and collective, is emergent in sociocultural practices, and is primarily mediated by language. Activity theory suggests that an activity is motivated by the transformation of an object (not only a material object but also cognitive units, such as a plan, an idea, or a goal) into an outcome. Although the category of activity can be analyzed on any of the four genetic levels, i.e., phylogenetic (development of humans as a species), sociocultural (development of cultures over time), ontogenetic (development of the individual over the life span), and micro-genetic (development of particular mental functions and processes over shorter periods of time), it is the latter three which are relevant for the purposes of analyzing language in intersubjective use. Activity is not only to be understood as simply doing things, but is to be seen as a more complex notion which encompasses three hierarchical levels: activity, action, and operation (Leontiev 1981a); this distinction forms the basis of activity theory. The lowest level is that of operation, referring to automated or habitual action, which is activated by immediate social or material conditions and is connected to a certain task; for example, the operation of sawing is dictated by the material tool of the saw. Action is located at the next higher level; it includes goaloriented behavior that can be carried out by an individual or a group. This could, for example, be the action of the beater at the hunt whose task it is to frighten animals and send them toward hunters hiding in ambush. Taken in isolation, the action of chasing away the game makes no sense. However, seen against the background of the collective activity system and its inherent division of labor, the goal-oriented action makes perfect sense. The activity level includes the general motive, or the driving force, behind these actions. For example, the beater is only one part in the complex and co-ordinated activity of the hunt which also includes the hunters, horsemen, dog handlers, etc. (cf. Engeström and Miettinen 1999: 4). Collective activities are motivated by the need to transform the object into the desired outcomes and presuppose a common goal for all participants. The collective activity can also be distributed, as each individual fulfils his or her own actions. Individual (or group) action is driven by a goal, and automated operations are driven by the conditions and tools of action at hand. However, different activities may occur at the same time, and different sections of a community can apply different actions while taking part in the same activity and aiming at the same object. Some activities can therefore change from one moment to the next, causing a shift of focus in the system; if an activity was to lose the motive that started it, it could be converted into an action, which could then bring about a different activity. This can also happen if an action turns into a stimulating force and becomes

168 | 5 Imposing structure on language-in-use an activity of its own right. However, according to activity theory, “any local activity resorts to some historically formed mediating artifacts, cultural resources that are common to the society at large” (Engeström and Miettinen 1999: 8). Activity theory is, on some levels, closely related to pragmatics which also focuses on the study of verbal interaction in its immediate sociocultural setting (for instance, genres, Discourses, participants in the interaction, their objectives, motivations, attitudes, but also the length and complexity of the interaction, as well as the general activity they are engaged in). According to Kasper and Rose (2001: 2), pragmatics can be defined as “interpersonal rhetoric – the way speakers and writers accomplish goals as social actors who do not just need to get things done but must attend to their interpersonal relationships with other participants at the same time.” In this definition, speakers or writers are defined as social actors who use language in a certain setting to pursue particular goals with certain people. Thus, pragmatics tries to analyze language-in-action which means that language use is understood as motivated, dynamic, and context-dependent. This perception makes it difficult, if not impossible, to develop valid rules for the pragmatic usage of language, as researchers such as Austin, Searle, Grice, and others have tried to do. Pragmatics, therefore, also has the tendency to formalize the flexible, dynamic, and changeable context-dependent usage of the medium of language by certain people in particular interactions. Activity theory, however, is a broader approach than pragmatics; it emphasizes the socially transformative power of activities and de-emphasizes the role of language, because communication is driven by the ambition to achieve a common goal, relating to the transformation of objects: “Exclusive focus on text may lead to the belief that knowledge, artifacts, and institutions are modifiable at will by means of rhetoric used by an author. Activity theory sees construction more broadly. People construct their institutions and activities above all by means of material and discursive, object-orientated actions” (Engeström and Miettinen 1999: 10). Activity theory also takes into consideration the role of activities in a historical dimension, thus seeing tools of activity not as the property of the individual actor, but as intersubjectively produced in diachronic and synchronic dimensions. With this approach, the leading proponent of modern activity theory, Yrjö Engeström, takes a position close to Vygotsky’s and Wittgenstein’s insistence on the practice of doing, or activity, which determines both the psychological development and the meaning of language. However, it was Vygotsky’s colleague Leontiev who, based on Marx’s concept of the production of value by labor, spelled out in detail the approach of object-oriented human activity. Mediated by tools, work is also “performed in conditions of joint, collective activity (. . . ). Only through a relation with other people does man relate to nature itself, which means that labour appears from the very beginning as a process

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mediated by tools (in the broad sense) and at the same time mediated socially” (Leontiev 1981a: 208). On this basis, Engeström (2005: 139–157) argues for an inclusive culturalhistorical activity theory (CHAT) and against reductive approaches, such as conversation analysis, discourse analysis, and critical discourse analysis: I argue that what organizes social life into meaningful modular units (. . . ) is practical objectoriented activity (. . . ). Practical activities have this strong organizing potential due to their objects. (. . . ) The centrality of object-oriented activity is particularly evident in organizational life. Organizations may emerge through conversation, but they do not emerge for the sake of conversation. They emerge and continue to exist in order to produce goods, services, or less clearly definable outcomes for customers or users. (Engeström 2005: 143–144)

From this viewpoint, agency cannot be separated from its social context because it operates within and through a social structure. Conscious agency is impossible to achieve without the involvement of others; but it is not to be understood as emerging from a conscious and voluntary agreement of autonomous individuals. Rather, any action that an individual initiates, always takes place from a sociocultural basis and it is usually mediated by material or semiotic tools, in particular language. Activity theory tries to approach the analysis of activity, including language use, from the structure of the particular activity which also has a structuring effect on the language used to coordinate and perform the activity (and vice versa). An example of the structuring power of activity is the (above mentioned) complex process of hunting organized by a group of people where some take on the role of beaters, others that of dog handlers, hunters, horsemen, etc. The activity of hunting determines and co-ordinates all their actions and operations, including their use of discourse and language. Engeström (2001) defines five principles that structure CHAT: (1) activity systems as the primary unit of analysis, understood as a “collective, artifact-mediated and object-oriented activity system, seen in its network relations to other activity systems” (Engeström 2001: 136); (2) multi-voicedness, understood as the blending of subjective voices with their distinct, at times even conflicting histories and approaches to the object in question which is in large parts also a result of their position in the division of labor (cf. Engeström 2001: 136); (3) historicity, relating to the long-term development of activity systems and the need to analyze these in a local-historical perspective of their objects, but also in the perspective of the global history of the tools, procedures, and concepts that shape, and are shaped, by the developing activity system; (4) contradictions of source, relating to the emerging contradictions within and between activity systems, for instance, problems, ruptures, or disturbances, which deviate from the expected course of normal procedures (cf. Engeström 2008: 27); these contradictions are analytically relevant

170 | 5 Imposing structure on language-in-use because they “offer a potentially powerful lens for understanding the interconnection between micro-level events and macro-level structure” (Engeström 2008: 26), for example, between individual actions and collective activity; (5) possibility of expansive transformations in activity systems, brought about by contradictions which may lead participants to deviate from the established norms of an activity system and foster collaborative envisioning of change and a collaborative effort of change, leading to new forms of activity, shaped by new objects and characterized by the adoption of new tools, for example, new technologies. CHAT has the potential to provide a comprehensive conceptual framework for analyzing the complex dialectical relationship between collective activity and subjective actions, as well as the systemic and dynamic properties of activities, including activities influencing and underlying language production. CHAT can be used for analyzing “entire organizations as well as their relatively autonomous departments, units, or teams (. . . ) as activity system” (Engeström 2008: 27) with a view to uncovering the complex relationships between the activity system, the actions, and operations of the people (individually and collectively) working in the system. CHAT can, in a similar manner, also be used for teaching and learning activities, for example, by analyzing these activities at the institutional, departmental, or classroom level. But the model can also be employed to analyze the hierarchic structure of an activity in the context of learning a L2 from the subjective perspective of a learner. The student’s motivation for learning the L2 may be found in societal or socioculturally-induced subjective needs which, in the activity-system model, can be understood as the object giving direction to the learner’s activity. The object of L2 learning activities is different for each individual learner and can “range from full participation in a new culture to receiving a passing grade required for graduation” (Donato and McCormick 1994: 455). The L2 learning activities contain a number of actions (e.g. learning grammatical rules or reading newspaper articles) which are aimed at certain goals (for example, improving grammatical accuracy or improving one’s reading comprehension). The actions in turn consist of operations which have been internalized by frequent repetitions, for example, contextual guessing of the meaning of unknown expressions during reading (cf. Donato and McCormick 1994: 455). Thus, the learner is working alone or with a group of learners and the teacher in class to transform the object (learning the L2 to a certain level of competence) in a complex activity. This implies the division of tasks in the form of actions and operations, all of which are object-orientated and integrated into the overall activity. CHAT can also be applied on a narrower level of L2 learning where the object is not located on the general level of acquiring the L2 and its cultural context to a high degree of competence, but on a lower level of object-related activities, such as role-play, cultural simulation games, or project work. The planning of activity,

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pertaining to objects (in the wider sense) of the other language and its sociocultural context, engages L2 learners in creative and imaginative discussions about devising a plan of approaching the complex task in terms of actions and operations which are necessary to successfully carry out the task, i.e. to transform the object into a meaningful role play, simulation, or project with the desired outcome. The discussions of devising a plan for the activity should ideally be conducted in the L2, so as to practice the second language system not for its own sake, but in a contextualized, meaningful, and goal-oriented manner. The internal discussions of devising a plan to tackle the activity leaves sufficient room for every voice to be included and to devise strategies of overcoming potential problems, ruptures, or disturbances, which deviate from the expected course of normal procedures (cf. Engeström 2008: 27). These contradictions also have a heuristic value for students, as they may lead to a better understanding of the interplay between micro-level operations and macro-level structure within the activity. Such an approach, structurally guided by the principles of activity theory, has several advantages compared to traditional teacher-centered L2 classroom activities. First of all, this leaves room for the discussion, planning, and blending of actions, operations, and constructs. Secondly, these activities require a heightened awareness and engagement by L2 learners, because the object-orientation demands a focused approach to successfully planning the complex activity with the goal of transforming the object (i.e., the role play, simulation, project, with the overarching object of becoming ever more fluent and competent in appropriately using the L2). Therefore, from the perspective of the learner, the learning outcome is tangible in terms of successfully devising and staging a role play, cultural simulation, or project, while the progress in constructing L2-related concepts and sociocultural frames is achieved as a byproduct of these activities. The more intensive engagement of students, triggered by the object-orientation of the activity, may also have a more long-term effect on the internalization of concepts if compared with the traditional L2 task-based classroom. Thus, activity theory seems to provide a more constructive framework for creative and experiential learning activities than the other linguistic approaches analyzed in this chapter. The performative approaches to analyzing language (speech act theory, CA, DA, CDA, and activity theory) try to reconstruct knowledge of intersubjective language use from the categories of activity which, after all, have primacy over the tool of language in terms of conceptualization and development. Speech act theory attempts to establish a coordination of linguistic means and functions of speech; it tries to construct a sort of grammar for actions, based on intentionally guided functions of communicative actions and speech functions. While speech act theory focuses on the illocutionary aspect of speech and text analysis on the propositional side, discourse analysis tries to focus on the

172 | 5 Imposing structure on language-in-use perlocutionary effect of the speech act or written text in the context of the discourse, and not without inferring sociological categories. CA, DA, and CDA also try to do basically the same as structural linguistics, namely apply some factor of order on performative aspects of language – be it the taxonomy of illocutionary functions of speech acts in speech act theory, or a concept, schema or model in text theory, or a certain conversational pattern in discourse analysis (cf. Feilke 1994: 273–276). While it is immensely appealing to produce formal rules for the way in which the construction of meaning operates in speech acts, in discourse, or in the written text, these structuring rules can typically be applied only in very restricted circumstances. Not only can they exclude perfectly normal instances of language use, for instance, in speech acts in the case of Austin and Searle (because of their focus on the semantics of speech act verbs), but they can also be so general in their specification that they fail to eliminate anomalous use. The context of scenarios of language-in-use is far too complex to understand in all its shaping influences on intersubjective interaction, for instance, in terms of social structures, cultural patterns, subjective memories, experiences, and intentions, histories of communication, voices of others, etc. Attempts to impose order and rules often treat aspects of context in ways that are reductionist and superficial. Therefore, they are of limited value for second language pedagogy. On the positive side, they can supply the L2 learner with a range of relevant vocabulary and (limited) principles of subjective engagement in L2 conversation, such as directness vs. indirectness, which the L2 speaker can draw upon in actual L2 interaction. On the negative side (from the perspective of the L2 learner), these guidelines can only be very broad since they need to be flexible enough for appropriate use in many different forms of interaction and blending of spaces. In general, they also need to take broader factors influencing the actual use of language into consideration, in particular ongoing attempts to construct one’s own subjectpositionings in the discourse and, at the same time, trying to identify the voice and positionings of the interlocutors. In order to achieve this, the subjectivities of the interlocutors with regard to their social positionings, but also to their subjective positionings in terms of identities, memories, and desires, have to be offered and read by the interactants. These factors are extremely difficult to identify and analyze in their influence on the activities of blending spaces in interaction. However, they significantly contribute to interaction, especially in the second language, because here, students are exposed to symbolic identities which have to be constructed much more deliberately in comparison to the deeply internalized and automatically applied constructs and categories of the L1. It is typically in the L2 classroom that students are for the first time consciously confronted with the relationships between their language, their culture, their thoughts, and their feelings.

6 The dynamics of identity Every individual has a sense of identity which serves as a nucleus for (inter-) action. Without notions of identity there would be no need for human interaction. However, identity is not a stable feature of the individual. It is not given (with the exception of an identity assigned by others), but is discursively constructed through interaction with others by using symbolic sign systems such as language. Notions of identity are only possible to develop and sustain in dialogue with others. Thus, identity is constantly under construction by the subject and relevant others; it is facilitated in the intersubjective space and temporarily adopted by the subject for certain purposes. Identity is afforded by particular resources and relationships, activated in particular contexts, and enacted in certain ways. Identity is not an internal state of the individual, but a discursive construct, characterized by dynamism and openness. The identity of the individual is interwoven with collective identities. It can only be stabilized in a cultural network of schemata of conceptualizations, emotions, attitudes, beliefs, behaviors, and Discourses which are constituted by linguistic and sociocultural categories. This fact underlines the close interrelation between language and constructs of identity in many dimensions, for instance, (1) language provides the subject with the semiotic tools for constructing a personal identity; (2) language facilitates the co-construction of a collective group identity; (3) language allows people to interact and test their constructs of identity; (4) language fosters modification of personal and social identities through interaction; (5) language (e.g., in the form of Discourses and genres) allows ways of performing and recognizing characteristic identities; (6) language use involves situated identities (in D/discourses, narratives, and genres); (7) language allows for a meta-perspective on one’s identity by integrating the reaction of others into the subjective constructs and performances of identity; (8) language, if it is at the core of personal and social constructs of identity, is also the nucleus for changing these constructs; (9) language provides elements for the construal of subjective and collective identities with the sites of resistance, discrimination, empowerment, and solidarity. Subject positions are offered, contested, rejected, and accepted in discursive interaction with others. Learning a L2 and its sociocultural context therefore has the potential to affect constructs of identity in many aspects: (1) the engagement with the other language and its cultural conceptualizations makes L1-mediated constructs of subjective identity more explicit; (2) the encounter with different constructs of “reality” can have an expanding effect on constructs of identity; (3) the engagement with different Discourses, genres, and narratives present alternative ways of constructing subjective identity; (4) the (at least momentary)

174 | 6 The dynamics of identity distancing from internalized L1-mediated cultural categories, norms, and traditions fosters the development of a desired identity which is (at least temporarily) freed from the restraints of the L1 and the underlying cultural patterns and values; (5) the ability to construct mental spaces on the basis of two (or more) languages and their inherent conceptualizations facilitates the development of an interculturally-based hybrid identity which is characterized by a high level of intercultural competence and openness in cognition, emotion, and behavior. Interculturally hybrid identities therefore have to rely on an understanding of the conflictual relationship between subjective and collective identities, based on the skill of empathy and the ability to judge and cooperate with cultural others. Learning a second language, therefore, has immediate and lasting effects on the constructs of identity for the L2 learner. The metaphorical term identity (derived from Latin identitas: absolute sameness) expresses the sense of who a person is in two dimensions: firstly, it refers to the subjective constructs and embodied sense of identity, and secondly, it stands for the recognition and singularity of the individual, as perceived by others. The notion of identity facilitates, for the subject, the ability to experience his or her self as a unitary self-identical being across time and changing contexts. At the same time, he or she is perceived by others to be the identical person across time and space. Personal identity is tightly interwoven with the social and cultural fabric of the life-practices in which the individual engages. Although reflections on identity can be traced back to Aristotle, the notion of identity has only become an issue in modern times. This is due to the fact that in traditional societies, identities are ascribed, even before the actual birth of a person; the notion of who someone is does not depend on the subjective aspirations, volition, or self-reflection, but on the socially projected and expected trajectory of someone’s being, for example, an aristocrat, priest, baker, farmer, or serf. In this static social framework, it is thus not necessary to problematize the notion of identity (cf. Taylor 1991: 58). In (post-)modern times, however, this inflexibility of the social framework has been increasingly eradicated by processes of accelerated social change. The subject can now, to a large extent, select the relevant elements of his or her identity, be it profession, religion, political orientation, place of living, etc. These categories are no longer stable for (post-)modern life because one may have, in the course of one’s lifetime, several occupations, places of living, political, sexual, and religious orientations, and so on. Thus, many aspects of identity are temporary, flexible, and highly context-dependent. These contextual influences on constructs of identity are apparent when, for instance, the same person defines himself or herself in the night club as a raver, professionally as a teacher, at political demonstrations as a socialist, at home as a father or mother, at the tennis club as a

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tennis player, etc. Therefore, “the identity question ‘Who am I?’ no longer needs to originate from a notion of a unitary subject as the ground for its investigation. Rather, the agentive subject is the point of departure for its own empirical instantiation” (Butler 1995: 446). In the course of disintegrating stable contextual aspects of identity in postmodern societies, the consumptive aspects of identity have become more accentuated, for example, the style of clothing, perfumes, tastes in music, or the ownership of lifestyle products. Hence one can say that, whereas in traditional society identity is given to the individual, in postmodern society identity is chosen by the subject.¹ Despite its increasing temporality, flexibility, and fragmentation, identity is an important concept for every individual, especially in the context of L2 learning, where it is particularly challenged (cf. Section 9.6). However, poststructuralists such as Foucault see the concept of identity as a “parody” (Foucault 1987: 86) because the many different, and at times conflicting, strands of identity cannot, in his opinion, be synthetically held together; rather they should be construed as unbridgeable discontinuities, for instance, as patchwork identities, or multiple selves. However, one can argue against this view that subjective and collective notions of identity lie at the heart of any communicative act, since the point of origin for interactive needs is the subject, as perceived and construed by him- or herself, and by others. Without any notions of self and identity² and notions of others, there would be no need for language as an intersubjective semiotic tool and therefore no necessity to develop language, either in phylogenetic or in ontogenetic dimensions. Expressions of notions of identity can be found in any human language, not least in indexical terms, such as personal pronouns. Although the grammatical

1 However, while many aspects of identity can be chosen and negotiated, some aspects are imposed (i.e., not negotiable, for example, on the basis of language accent) or assumed (i.e. not negotiated, for instance, on the basis of middle-class, if one is comfortable with that identity) (cf. Pavlenko and Blackledge 2004: 21). 2 Although the concepts of self and identity are closely related, they are different in that identity is a construct which develops with the ontogenetic trajectory of the individual; therefore it is never essential, stable, or closed but always changeable and modifiable. By contrast, the psychological entity of self remains relatively stable in a subjective perspective. The embodied self “is given to each human being at birth and is to be discovered, respected and maintained” (Kramsch 2009a: 17). In order to clarify this difference, Paul Ricœur (1996) introduces the notions of idem identity (of sameness) and ipse identity (of selfhood). The difference between the two is the difference between subject and the predicative noun in the question “Who (or what) am I?” The “I” stands for ipse, and the “what” refers to the idem identity, or the character, of a person. The subject (ipse) stays basically the same, even if the character (idem) changes over time due to contextual influences.

176 | 6 The dynamics of identity categorization of three persons (I, you, he/she/it) in the singular and plural is characteristic of standard European languages and may be different for other languages, the notion of I, and thus personal identity, can be found in all human languages due to the centrality of the agentive self engaging in (inter-)action, experiences, and remembering past events and experiences. Therefore, the construct of a subjective identity can be said to be a truly universal category, as Jerome Bruner (1995) suggests: Cultures obviously have different ways of aiding their members toward the realization of meaning. But all cultures have one universal feature that is indisputable: they always respect the centrality of self in the meaning-making enterprise. All cultures take as the mark of having achieved meaning that the individual says an equivalent of “I understand”, that achieving meaning is marked by a unique subjective state that will be understood as such by others who share a culture. (Bruner 1995: 27; emphasis added)

In the ontogenetic dimension, initial notions of identity are developed by the infant during the early stages of socialization through the process of increasing differentiation from others. In the pre-linguistic phase, the infant begins to relate bodily feelings to an intuitive notion of self, and gradually develops the notion that there is something like an agentive I. This is due to the fact that the infant starts to act and perform in the given, albeit rather limited, social context of his or her primary socialization (for instance, family, significant others); thus, identity is fundamentally characterized by a performative aspect (cf. Chapter 2). In the course of further socialization, this early notion of identity is progressively confirmed and extended by constant semiotic negotiation between self and other(s) throughout primary and secondary socialization so that a concept of a specifically subjective identity in a more general social and cultural context stabilizes for the individual. From his or her perspective, this concept of subjective identity does not fundamentally change over the duration of his or her lifetime, since the biological self does not change (although it develops). This notion is the nucleus of the misconception that there is such a thing as a stable or essentialized identity. This misconception is, of course, supported by some forms of institutionalized Discourse. Block (2007: 1–2) demonstrates this mechanism with the example of the “identity theft,” of which financial institutions warn their customers. Identity theft means that the identity of a person in terms of bank account numbers, address, date and place of birth, PIN codes, passwords, and credit card numbers are stolen by criminals who then can use this information to withdraw funds from that person’s bank accounts. On the basis of these identity-markers, the criminals are in a position to assume, for the institution, the identity of the genuine customer.

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In postmodern theory, this concept of a stable and contained identity, like that of a subject, is viewed very critically, as it seems to operate with essentialist and consequently reductive categories (cf. Foucault 1987: 86). Even in social contexts, identity is indeed frequently seen as something essential, something that is ascribed to a particular person or a group of people over a long period of time. Identity politics, for example, ascribes particular identity features to certain (usually historically disempowered) groups of people, and on that basis subsequently draws certain conclusions about the group in question. These can be very onesided and are usually misrepresentations of certain alleged features of the group, for instance, members of certain races, nations, cultures, ethnic groups, or religions. Constructionist approaches to a socially constituted “reality,” however, oppose essentialist notions of identity, be it on subjective or social (group) planes (cf. Harré and Gillet 1994; Gergen 1999; Shotter 1993). While postmodernist suspicions of concepts of identity are certainly justified with regard to social practices, it would be wrong to do away with concepts of identity completely, especially in the context of second language acquisition research, since any study of language needs to take consideration of identity if it is to be full and rich and meaningful, because identity is itself at the very heart of what language is about, how it operates, why and how it came into existence and evolved as it did, how it is learned and how it is used, every day, by every user, every time it is used. It is because speakers and writers inherently know that both the form and the content of linguistic production are shaped, and frequently driven, by the imperatives of identity. (Joseph 2004: 224)

If language is at the core of subjective and social constructs of identity, then language must also be the nucleus for dynamic change of constructs of identity. Hence, membership in Discourses, narratives, and genres normally define the personal and social identities of a person to a greater degree than, for example, his or her biological heritage. Within the Discourses and genres available to the subject, he or she has to perform his or her identity and take up certain subject positions so that others can react to them (e.g., by assigning certain positionings to the subject). These enactments of identity, together with the integration of sociocultural macrostructures, systems, and relations, contribute to the identity assignments, affordances, and recognitions which are encoded into memories that constitute a “self.” These encodings develop through a history of participation (in terms of spaces, relationships, and histories in the production of knowledge structures), thus contributing to their constantly shifting and changing character. In this context, learning a second language assumes potentially huge relevance for personal constructs of identity, because new concepts, Discourses, genres, courses of action, and cultural patterns become available to the subject.

178 | 6 The dynamics of identity These have an impact on the learner’s stock of options for construal. Whereas the monolingual and monocultural individual typically never questions the takenfor-granted conceptualizations and constructs of his or her native culture (or questions them only at a superficial level when living in the majority culture of a multicultural society), in the process of learning a second language these constructs are increasingly shaken and qualified because the subject has access to a differential point of reference. This alerts the subject to the fact that individual and social life can be organized in different ways so that the subject can subsequently base his or her constructs on developing intercultural spaces, as Norton and Toohey explain with reference to Bourdieu’s (1997) concept of cultural capital.³ If learners “invest” in a second language, they do so with an understanding that they will acquire a wider range of symbolic and material resources, which will in turn increase the value of their cultural capital. As the value of their cultural capital increases, so learners’ sense of themselves and their desires for the future are reassessed. Hence the integral relationship between investment and identity. (Norton and Toohey 2002: 122)

This reassessment of learners’ sense of themselves can lead to questions about one’s identity. Here, identity becomes an issue, whereas the monolingual person does not necessarily encounter situations where he or she has to seriously think about his or her identity since his or her sense of self is not normally fundamentally challenged by interaction with members of the same speech community. Some academics (e.g., Doyé 2008: 29–31; Byram 2008: 29–30, 137) have convincingly pointed out that intensive second language learning can be likened to undergoing a tertiary socialization, which has a similar impact on the subject as primary and secondary socialization in terms of challenging the acquired stock of knowledge and subsequently restructuring and redefining ways of knowing, understanding, perceiving, and construing (cf. Section 9.6). This means that the multilingual subject undergoes three major stages of socialization, all of which have a transformative impact on his or her range of cognitive (and emotional) constructs. Under these circumstances, it is increasingly difficult for the subject to maintain a coherent sense of identity. By participating simultaneously in many

3 Bourdieu (1997: 47) differentiates between embodied, objectified, and institutionalized cultural capital. The emphasis in the present context is on embodied capital. “The accumulation of cultural capital in the embodied state, i.e., in the form of what is called culture, cultivation, Bildung, presupposes a process of embodiment, incorporation, which, insofar as it implies a labor of inculcation and assimilation, costs time, time which must be invested personally by the investor” (Bourdieu 1997: 48; emphasis in the original).

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different genres and Discourses across languages and cultures, the subjective concepts of identity can be differentiated, basically along the lines of personal and sociocultural identities; these, in turn, can be differentiated further.

6.1 Personal identity Personal identity refers to the subjective constructs of an individual with regard to who he or she perceives himself or herself to be, based on the subjective construction of his or her unique personality, drives, motivations, desires, values, goals, and beliefs. Contrary to the implications of the term, personal identity is not, of course, completely personal in the sense of a monolithic and atomistic construct, but depends completely on the D/discursive negotiation of identity with others in the direction of a desired personal identity which is always socioculturally facilitated and restrained. Personal identity is a highly dynamic and porous construct that can easily change at the margins, depending on the reactions and responses of others. Personal identity is also interdependent with more stable or primary identity markers such as one’s culture, language, ethnicity, gender, family, and religion, all of which are social constructs and thus dependent on social fields (understood as dynamic configurations); however, they can assume a more lasting influence on one’s constructs of identity than secondary identities markers, such as role identity, relational identity, or facework identity (cf. Chapter 6).⁴ Selfhood, or personal identity, is “discursively produced for others by the use of the first person pronoun, and at the same time is discursively produced for ourselves. It reflects and in part engenders my sense of my own personal identity” (Harré and Gillet 1994: 107). Thus, identity is to a large extent orientated, not only towards the aspirations of the subject, but also to the expectations of others (including expectations the person assumes others might have with regard to him or her). Since these constructs of identity are torn in different directions by the simultaneous membership of the subject in different Discourses and genres, identity is always an agentive, hybrid, and polyphonic construct. It is, ultimately, an illusion.

4 Within the concept of personal identity, one can differentiate between the notions of selfconcept and self-consciousness. Whereas self-concept, or self-identity, is the total sum of one’s knowledge and understanding of one’s embodied self, self-consciousness is an awareness of one’s self. Components of the self-concept include physical, psychological, and social attributes which can be influenced by the individual’s attitudes, habits, beliefs, and ideas which can be tacit to a large extent. By contrast, self-consciousness refers to the consciously available and reflective aspects of constructs of self.

180 | 6 The dynamics of identity People are constantly giving off signals to others which for them define who they are. This image of a person is in turn modified and projected back onto him or her by the others and is taken in more or less an unchanged form by the subject as part of his or her personal identity (cf. Section 6.5: Mead’s concept of me). It serves for the subject as a unifying platform for conscious and predictable action in both personal and social dimensions; it enables the individual to act, react, and interact in a coherent manner over a period of time. Identity is therefore always tied up in participation in communities of practice; this could be colleagues at work, family, friends, or fellow members in a sports club. Thus, personal identity is also to a large extent dependent on the groups in which the person moves and with which he or she identifies. Group identities are made up by different people identifying with the same values, heroes, ideals, patterns of action, goals, etc., bound together by a certain loyalty which guarantees a certain group consistency. Group identity, like personal identity, operates with processes of exclusion and inclusion. Whereas these processes occur on the personal level by using concepts of ego and alter ego, the social level operates with concepts of us and them. These processes operate mainly with two strategies, namely with policies of memory and stereotyping (cf. Schmidt 2003: 112) which define a group’s own membership by emphasizing its differences from others. As a group member, the person contributes to the group identity, but at the same time he or she also integrates parts of the group identity into his or her own construct of personal identity: “[W]e take steps to distinguish ourselves from those who belong to different groups. Our tastes and lifestyles have no intrinsic value but serve to maintain the coherence of the group to which we belong” (Robbins 1991: 174). The subject is normally a member of many groups, and he or she partakes in many different Discourses, thereby combining their clusters of significations with his or her own views. All available Discourses and group members contribute to the subject’s uniquely mediated constructs of personal identity and self, and simultaneously the subject contributes to the social group interaction and thereby to the structure and coherence of the Discourses. Since normally no particular type of Discourse or group membership holds univocal sway over the identity of the subject, he or she must continuously negotiate, balance, and correct features of different, sometimes even conflicting identity traits (cf. Harré and Gillet 1994: 25). Thus, the individual has to integrate many facets and voices that arise from the intersection of different influences, and carve out a coherent personal construct of identity, or a viable subject position, for himself or herself with a certain longitudinal integrity. In postmodern times, although there are many aspects of identity on offer from which the individual can choose, the individual is not completely free to select his or her identity. As Friedman argues: “Individual identity is neither carried by the subject nor can it be chosen freely. This is because it is primarily

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positional. Identity is determined by one’s place in a larger network of relations” (Friedman 1994: 36). In this sense, the unique place of positioning (actively and passively, cf. Section 4.5) in the social network also contributes to the construction of an image of personal identity for the others, that is, for all participants in this larger network of relations. Personal identity also refers to one’s sense of being located at certain coordinates of space and time and having a position in the moral order of the groups with which one interacts and in which one has established a social identity that is continuously in the process of negotiation and re-negotiation, both from the subject’s and from the group members’ perspective. Therefore, it is obvious that, “Identities are not just given and chosen, they have to be enacted, but this means that they have to enter into negotiation with the situation in which they are performed or otherwise acted upon” (During 2005: 150–151). This kind of pragmatic negotiation with the immediate situation can be done on many levels, for instance, affective, cognitive, or sensory-motor levels, but the major dimension of engagement is semiotic, and the most important semiotic instrument is language: “Language features are the link which binds individual and social identities together. Language offers both the means of creating the link and that of expressing it” (TabouretKeller 1997: 317). Everyday interaction, D/discourses, genres, and narratives are important tools for constructing a personal identity, especially in (post-)modern times when our sense of self, or identity, is shifting because, as Urry (1990: 224) suggests, we are far less rooted in time and space than our ancestors. Daily access to visual media, such as TV or the Internet, and the ease and affordability of travel in contemporary society means that many people now know about many different representations of diverse cultures and places (albeit usually transmitted through translations into the dominant language – with all the imperialistic connotations that will be discussed in Section 8.4). Urry (1990) suggests that this displacement contributes to a loss of sense of self and an increasing importance of playful involvement with different images and different experiences for the construction of selfhood and a personal identity. By contrast to visual media, such as TV, which are merely passively consumed by the viewer, the L2 classroom offers a forum for contesting linguistically mediated constructs of identity which are performed in the community of practice of the L2 classroom. The direct interaction with the L2 and its sociocultural context facilitates a playful engagement in constructing and performing different subject positions, and in constructing alternative identities with alternative means, the L2 and its sociocultural context provides new perspectives and potentials for the self. Some L2 teaching methodologies make explicit use of this acting out of alternative identities, for instance, suggestopedia. In this approach, the L2 learner assumes an imagined identity in the other socioculture (including another name,

182 | 6 The dynamics of identity profession, family, etc.) which he or she acts out over the whole duration of learning the L2 because his or her L2 identity is maintained for the whole L2 course (cf. Larsen-Freeman 2000: 84). This method is supposed to help learners to develop for themselves a clear separation of the two respective languages (L1 and L2) and related identities.

6.2 Discursive negotiation of identity Rather than seeing identity as a stable and essentialized construct, it is important to conceptualize it in a non-essentialist manner and to define it as a dynamic, multi-dimensional, and variable concept that is tied in many ways to the intersection of the categories of the subject, social environment, society, culture, narrative, genre, and Discourse. Hence, constructionist theoreticians who have not discarded the notion of identity altogether, emphasize the fact that the dynamic, multilayered, and variable concept of identity is linked to D/discourses, genres, and narratives that are prevalent within cultural spheres. The individual (and the group) negotiates and experiences his or her own individuality by inhabiting a number of discursive subject positionings that are pre-constructed to a certain degree by established Discourses – for instance, those of class, gender, race, nation, ethnicity, age, family, profession, or religion. From the point of view of others, the social identity-indexes of a person are cued not only by his or her participation in certain genres and Discourses, but also by the language he or she is using (and sometimes both are difficult to differentiate, cf. Section 4.5), the dress he or she is wearing, the perfume he or she wears, and his or her body language. The key for displaying an identity is recognition; if “others recognize you as a particular type of who (identity) engaged in a particular type of what (activity)” (Gee 2005: 27), you have successfully enacted your “identity” in a particular Discourse. Membership in many different Discourses, however, means a pluralization of identities, as every Discourse emphasizes particular aspects of the identity of the same person. Thus, identities are constantly constructed, maintained, deconstructed, and reconstructed in everyday interactions between people, a process in which certain constructs tend to stabilize for some time and form the perceived core of an identity of a subject (or a group). Subjects actively position themselves in discursive processes such as conversations or narratives, but they are at the same time positioned by others in the process (cf. Section 4.5). The positioning markers are, from a subjective point of view, the subject’s sense of a coherent narrative for a particular activity in a particular place at a particular time. From the point of view of others, the person’s position in the D/discourse is ascribed according to this nar-

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rative and other relevant semiotic markers (such as dress, politeness, directness, tone, etc.). The ethnolinguist Elinor Ochs (1996: 410) suggests that this “indexicality principle” is part of every communicative act: when people are communicating, they are at the same time establishing the others’ social identities (for example, group membership, rank, roles) and their epistemic stances (for example, sources and scope of knowledge, competence of proposition). When little is known about the other’s biographical identity, interlocutors must provide, consciously or not, in the immediate interaction certain communicative symbols by which they will be classified and assessed as persons. In addition, referring to Bakhtin’s concept of heteroglossia (cf. Section 4.1), competent interlocutors are constantly trying to establish with which other voices the counterpart(s) are talking, from what subject positions, and with what intentions. Identities are constantly and actively produced in interaction with others, be it through deliberate, strategic manipulation, or through subconscious practices which emphasize both the agency of interlocutors and the property of language as social action. The notion of a stable and unified identity of an individual is torn apart by membership in different ongoing Discourses and genres based on cultural schemata and patterns, which in turn are influenced and constantly changed by social practices (and vice versa). However, the term identity contains a paradox: every subject constantly strives for an identificatory unity of self, yet this unity remains principally unachievable. People are never identical with themselves in the trivial sense that the term implies, namely that someone or something is identical or equal with someone or something else. People are constantly negotiating for identity in D/discourses. Thus, identity is an imagined construct that serves as an aspirational focal point for the social praxis of the individual, in that it contributes to the potential for (inter-)action and motivates the subject to pursue certain forms of action which are located in the present but are at the same time directed towards the future in the sense of an aspired identity (for instance, embodied in a role model such as a rock star or an actress). Seen this way, identity can be understood as a normative and social aspiration or demand that people make on their selves with the premonition that it can never be fulfilled. Personal identity hence constantly tries to attain a balance between continuity and change on the one hand, and coherence and flexibility on the other. If continuity and coherence are accentuated too much, then rigidity and fixity could be the result; if, however, flexibility is accentuated, diffusion of identity and loss of orientation might be the consequence (cf. Rosa 2007: 49). L2 acquisition can lead to diffusion of identity because the internalized basis of the L1-mediated constructs of identity may be challenged by the constructs of the L2. However, these can only be transient phases in the process of developing

184 | 6 The dynamics of identity constructs of identity which are blended in the intercultural third spaces and which ideally lead to interculturally-based hybrid forms of identity. L2 learning is also tied in with aspirational goals, as people typically learn a L2 in order to increase their cultural capital. They may even look forward to reconceptualizing their identities in the L2 as a means of escaping the dreary world of the L1 speech community.

6.3 Narrative identity One way of achieving and maintaining a balance between continuity and change in construals of identity is to fabricate an autobiographical narrative. Interaction with others in communities of practice is a necessary precondition for offering certain role models of action and behavior which can then be copied, criticized, modified, or rejected by the subject. We can see examples of this kind of positioning every day in public debates between politicians on TV, but it also takes place, albeit usually not so explicitly, in our everyday lives, for instance, by presenting oneself as a caring neighbor, or a loving parent. These complex processes are an important stimulant for the subjectively evolving notion of a coherent and balanced personal identity which a person can psychologically maintain over time and space, and which serves as a basis for social action and cognitive-emotional construction. Autobiographical narration does not only serve the purpose of defining one’s identity for self and for others, but is also a mechanism of weaving one’s narrative threat into the social fabric of the community. Narrative identity has become more relevant in recent times of migration and displacement by offering ways of resolving the tensions between fragmented, decentered, and shifting identities. Seen in this light, “Identity narratives offer a unique means of resolving this tension, (re-)constructing the links between past, present, and future, and imposing coherence where there was none” (Pavlenko and Blackledge 2004: 18). Thus, for the subject, but also for his or her social environment, a coherent identity is constructed and offered through autobiographical narration. This process enables credible positionings in D/discourses of which the subject is, or wants to become, a member. From a subjective point of view, identity is an imagined configuration that provides a temporary orientation for coping with the requirements of everyday life on the one hand and for social positioning on the other. Seen in this way, notions of personal identity are transient in their constitution and in their enactment. However, the subject psychologically glues together the many different and temporary strands and stages of his or her life in his or her autobiography in the sense of constructing a dynamic identity, mainly by means of personal narratives relat-

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ing to experiences and events (but also to people and locations). These narratives serve to integrate the heterogeneous aspects of identity by combining different, even conflicting, actions, experiences, memories, and events into a coherent autobiographical story. This is achieved through the technique of telling stories about oneself in the first person. Since the subject is telling these stories from different subject positions which are influenced by the interaction with others, the stories are dialogically intertwined and reveal the plural and dynamic aspects of identity. For instance, the moral-collective voice of a person can have pity with another individual, but the professional voice of this person (e.g., as a policeman) can still urge him to arrest the individual. The subject combines different experiences, voices, memories, desires, ambitions, and events in particular ways into a more or less continuous and coherent life story which is orientated towards an ideal form of an aspirational construct of self (cf. Daiute 2004). Celebrities even employ professional ghost writers to fabricate a fabulous “autobiography” which typically glosses over the more controversial aspects of that person’s life. Autobiographical narratives create a coherent sense of a past identity, not only for the individual, but also for those who know him or her. Autobiographical narration is about negotiating new subject positions and aspects of identity at the intersection of the past, present, and future. Autobiographical narration, therefore, can be seen as the “quintessential identity medium” (Daiute 2004: 114). In this sense, identity has been created in the past, and has to be sustained in the present and remade in the future (cf. Baldwin et al. 2004: 142). Narrative accounts of identity are tested by telling first-person stories to others and assessing the responses they provoke, be it consciously or not. The constant remaking of aspects of identity reveals the fact that the sense of self is to some extent an illusion, or a fiction. This becomes evident when this form of narrative identity is likened to the specific story of a particular figure in literary fiction. Like the literary protagonist, the subject is located at the center of his or her virtual world, i.e., the world that he or she constructs and experiences as “reality.” He or she is the indexical center of this world which he or she, in contrast to a literary figure, actively creates and experiences at first hand; the subject not only narrates a story but has a story. The subject does not create his or her narrative autobiographical identity completely on his or her own account; it is also orientated towards the expectations raised by the structure and storyline of these narratives, and towards the expectations and reactions of the recipients (real or imagined). Narration is always dependent on the audience because the narrative is directed to them, and therefore certain aspects of one’s life story may be deliberately excluded, or emphasized. The narrative is not primarily concerned with revealing the “real” self of the narrator but rather with the construction of a plausible identity between the narrator and the audience. Narrative identity does not only change over time, but also

186 | 6 The dynamics of identity with the (real or imagined) audience. In correlation to the narrative, the identity of the subject unfolds in a dialectical manner; on the one hand, there is the ordering principle of concordance that mediates the singular temporal unity of his or her life; on the other, there is the principle of discordance, containing the necessity to respond immediately to unforeseen strokes of fate in an unscripted manner. These sociobiographical activities allow people to perform, contest, and center their – to a large extent subconscious – constructs of identity. These activities consist of diverse social interactions. Whereas the activity of performing self is creating a particular social context by reproducing social context values (as mirrored by others), the activity of contesting self is tuned more to subjective values, in that it expresses “ambivalence in the narrator’s stance towards social pressures, acknowledging them in a self-interested way by justifying, defending, or aggrandizing a personal perspective that seems at odds with the context values” (Daiute 2004: 119). The activity of centering self is even more tuned towards personal notions of identity – derived from the sociobiographical activities of performing and contesting self – as it refers to the activities of trying to construct a unitary identity for, and of, self in the long run, in the sense of striking a balance between continuity and coherence. These discursive results of socially constructing and performing a personal identity are always preliminary and transient; they can even be changed retrospectively if the social context implies or requires different constructs. Thus, another level of flexibility is added to the notion of narrative identity: “Narrative identity, being at the same time fictitious and real, leaves room for variations on the past – a ‘plot’ can always be revisited – and also for initiatives in the future. It is an open-ended identity which gives meaning to one’s practice, which makes any one act meaningful” (Martin 1995: 8). In narrative constructs of identity, the notion of identity is to a large extent derived from the plot of the story. One reveals to others one’s own personal construct of narrative identity, and in the discursive process one interprets and arranges, re-interprets and re-arranges this narrative. Narrative identity principally includes the Other in a double sense because firstly, it is directed towards an Other, and secondly, the dominant narrative of identity builds on the internalized values, attitudes, orientations, interpretations, and patterns of action of significant others. Internalization of this kind is one of the focal intersections where social identities gain entry to personal constructs of identity. The stories which the individual construes on the basis of his or her past experiences and those which others have told him or her provide some concrete aid for the individual to choose a particular course of action (and not others) in certain circumstances. Thus, these narratives provide the guidelines for general and specific social action.

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In terms of narrative constructions of identities, we participate in a storied world which can be massively expanded by learning a second language, because the L2 culture provides narratives that are different in content and in structure. The norms of these narratives may be different, for example, regarding centrality of the self which is typical in Western cultures but may be less typical for Asian cultures where the group or collective may carry more emphasis. Thus, the L2 provides access to differential forms of autobiographical narration and also offers different stories which can influence the L2 learners’ narrative identity. The advanced L2 learner may even be looking forward to repackaging his or her autobiographical account in the concepts, structures, and patterns of the L2 and its sociocultural context. Narrative constructions of identity have nothing to do with essentializing and stabilizing notions of identity; on the contrary, the concept of narrative identity includes principally the multifaceted and open-ended, always revisable and even reversible, nature of identity based on membership in many different discourses and groups (even across languages and cultures), all of which have a unique identity.

6.4 Social and cultural identity An early sense of identity, or self, is instilled in the infant by interacting with others. However, even in the pre-linguistic stages, the infant has bodily feelings which he or she relates to an intuitive notion of self; but this can only be raised to consciousness by a symbolic medium which will facilitate abstract thought – language. Language pre-exists the individual human being, and therefore the infant has to appropriate language to become aware of his or her own needs, first intuitively, then ever more consciously. Thus, language is also a social instrument for facilitating a sense of identity: “Although there is no one-to-one relationship between one’s language and his or her identity, language is the most sensitive indicator of the relationship between an individual and a given social group” (Kramsch 1998: 77; emphasis in the original). The infant, and later the child and adult, experiences his or her identity as something that increasingly gains a reality of its own. This can be seen to be the basis of the common misconception that there is something like an essential and unitary identity which does not change for the subject over the course of his or her biological life. However, identity is not biologically given but semiotically negotiated. Since language, as the major tool for identity-construction, is an instrument inscribed with a social and cultural heritage, the subjective (and collective) construction of identity is ultimately a sociocultural process. The initial exchanges with significant others during infancy and childhood develop into

188 | 6 The dynamics of identity interactions with others in subsequent (secondary and tertiary) socialization processes which are channeled not only by the language and culture of the interactants per se, but also by the increasing amount of largely pre-structured discursive patterns and macro-structures, such as Discourses, narratives, and genres into which the person grows and, in the process, makes them his or her own. Thus, constructs of identity can differ significantly between members of different cultures and D/discourses. Kramsch (2003: 131) refers to this phenomenon as different “identity types” that are facilitated by certain historical, regional, Discursive, and social configurations: “In this sense one may assert that an American has a different identity from a French person, a New Yorker from a Midwesterner, a teacher from a corporate executive” (Kramsch 2003: 131). Constructs of identity are always embodied and socially, culturally, and linguistically situated. Therefore, they are shaped by the dialectic of socioculturally available structure and subjectively negotiated agency. Social identity focuses on the relationship between group membership and personal identity. Tajfel (1978: 63; emphasis in the original) defines social identity as “that part of an individual’s self-concept which derives from his knowledge of his membership of a social group (or groups) together with the value and emotional significance attached to that membership.” People are conscious of themselves as group members, and by perceiving the groups they belong to in a positive fashion (also by processes of negatively contrasting them to other groups in a stereotypical manner), they are able to enhance their social identity, as well as the identity of the given group. Social identity “encompasses all dimensions of social personae, including roles (e.g. speaker, overhearer, master of ceremonies, doctor, teacher, coach), relationships (e.g. kinship, occupational, friendship, recreational relations), group identity (e.g. gender, generation, class, ethnic, religious, educational group membership), and rank (e.g. titled and untitled persons, employer and employee), among other properties” (Ochs 1996: 410). Consequently, the process of social categorization, combined with the desire for a positive social identity, leads to in-group favoritism and out-group discrimination. In this process, the in-group members develop stereotypical views of the out-group members which tend to be negative because of the ambition to maintain a relatively high social identity for oneself and the group one identifies with; this crude and reductive process of ascribing an imagined superior identity to the in-group and an imagined inferior identity to the out-group is captured in the neologisms of “othering” (Berg and Fuchs 1993: 13) and “otherization” (Kumaravadivelu 2008: 16). Social identity is thus tied to a positive self-image of both the group and its individual members in the context of competition of identities between groups. This competition, however, presupposes a shared value system as the basis for comparison and differentiation.

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Thus, on the one hand, the group has a decisive and forceful influence on the collective and individual construal of identity, and also on the individual’s actions and behavior, as Kristiansen (2008) elaborates: “Acting almost as a kind of hidden hand that guides individual action, the group creates and maintains the social norms that govern so much of our behaviour. It defines the individual’s place in society, acts as a polarizer of attitudes and judgements and intervenes in processes of causal attribution of events” (Kristiansen 2008: 427). This observation also extends to the identity-constructs of the subject, which are completely reliant on the language, culture, and social norms of others. We only appreciate constructs made available to us on that basis and accommodate them to our needs and aspirations. Sometimes, however, the hypothesized link between the individual and the group identities is construed by researchers as too stable and reductive. When, for instance, a link is established between a specific regional or social group and a specific language-variety, this essentialized link can “obscure the fact that individuals may also construct particular identities through linguistic resources of groups to which they do not straightforwardly belong” (Pavlenko and Blackledge 2004: 9). This observation emphasizes again the creative potential of the self which conforms to a certain degree with group expectations but can also deviate from it to some extent. The collective constructs of identity are internalized by the subject through constant dialogue with others, but this dialogue contains and legitimizes the voice of the subject, too. Gumperz (1982) emphasizes a facet of group identity, where the dominant and minority groups develop different codes to reassert their identities in bilingual communities: “The tendency is for the ethnically specific, minority language to be regarded as the ‘we-code’ and become associated with in-group and informal activities, and for the majority language to serve as the ‘they-code’ associated with the more formal, stiffer, less personal out-group relations” (Gumperz 1982: 66). There seems to be a clear and direct association between communicative style and group identity, although it is symbolic and does not directly predict actual language usage (cf. Gumperz 1982: 66). This means that identities can be used by linguistically construing and performing them specifically for others to react. An example of this mechanism is the use of an immediately recognizable sociolect of German used by young people of Turkish descent living in Germany; this language has become known as “Turkspeak” (Türkendeutsch, Kiezdeutsch, or Kanak Sprak), and its speakers use it to flag their pronounced Turkish-German blended identity (cf. Keim 2002). This language serves to express their hybrid cultural identity since their national identity has, for them, been diluted; many young Turkish-Germans hold a German passport. Although this particular slang of Turkish-German has in recent years increasingly been used by Turkish-German comedians for the purpose of cheap ethno-gags in their shows (aimed at a German

190 | 6 The dynamics of identity audience), the 24 Turkish-German youths who were “given” a voice in the book Kanak Sprak (Zaimoğlu 2001)⁵ use this subversive sociolect to pronounce their Turkish identity in their home country, Germany. The term Kanake is a pejorative German word for Gastarbeiter, or guest worker (migrants of mainly Turkish, southern European, and sometimes Arab origin), and is used in a similar function and connotation to the English (British) expression wog. It flags their perceived status at the fringes of German society and their intention to reclaim the pejorative term and use it as a space of resistance. Some call themselves “nigger” (Zaimoğlu 2001: 9), hinting at their self-perceived similarities to the status of Afro-Americans in U.S. society. And similar to the tone of some Black Panther statements, Turkspeak is used in order to create distance, not only from the German language, but from German society in general: “Ich ruf den brüdern zu: bildet ne stramme einheit, und haltet euch fern von psychogemetzeln, die da in alemania toben. Verderben ist der stammname des blonden teufels. [I call on you, brothers: form a strong unit and keep out of psycho wars that are rampaging in Germany. Everything that involves the blond devil leads to ruin]” (Zaimoğlu 2001: 86; my translation, A.W.). The terminology of the blond devil, brothers, and psycho wars seems to be used as a conscious allusion to the struggle of the Black Panther movement. It should be said, however, that this politically loaded form of Turkspeak (which intentionally violates orthographic, grammatical, and syntactical norms of standard German) is particular to some young Turkish Germans; the vast majority of Turkish Germans try to construe their blended Turkish-German identity in a less confrontational manner, as expressed, for example, in the text Zungenentfernung [Tongue Removal] (Şenocak 2001) or the collection of short stories Der Hof im Spiegel [The Courtyard in the Mirror] (Özdamar 2001). Turkspeak in its many manifestations can be seen as a deliberate attempt to linguistically express a blended Turkish-German identity which intentionally positions the speaker of this language variety in a space between the two languages and cultures (typically, the speaker also has competence in Turkish and German). The use of language for indicating preferred cultural identities is not normally stable; on the contrary, they can be invoked and rejected in the same interaction, just as the person can perceive his or her construction of identity as momentarily advantageous. This is the case because: “Social identities are made manifest through talk, not just through the actual language or ‘code’ used but also through the content and context” (Seeba and Wootton 1998: 284). In bilingual societies (for instance, in Canada, Ireland, or Wales) there is a stronger need than in monolingual societies to flag the idea of belonging to one speech community rather than

5 Zaimoğlu largely constructs these fictional characters, based on semi-fictional interviews.

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another, be it through language, ways of talking, music, or dress. Among these identity markers, language is the by far the most effective as it is not constrained to the present but ties in with the sociocultural context in a historical dimension.

6.5 Ascribed identities, role, and voice While some aspects of identity are inherited (for example, gender, or ethnicity), many others are ascribed to us from our membership to particular social groups, genres and Discourses. However, the ascription process is usually not only mediated, but also activated by language, as Joseph (2004) explains: “Language” in the sense of what a particular person says or writes, considered from the point of view of both form and content, is central to individual identity. It inscribes the person within national and other corporate identities, including establishing a person’s “rank” within the identity. It constitutes a text, not just of what the person says, but of the person, from which others will read and interpret the person’s identity in the richest and most complex ways. Indeed, the over-readings they produce will be richer than the text itself can sustain. (Joseph 2004: 225; emphasis in the original)

These ascribed identities are difficult to escape and can have considerable consequences for the standing of a person in a wider social context. For instance, it can be very difficult for a person with a North Dublin accent to find employment in Ireland because potential employers identify this person with socially induced personality traits derived from a socially disadvantaged background, such as poor education, or a poor work ethic, even though these ascribed stereotypes might not be true for the particular person in question. The opposite would be true for a person from South Dublin with a Dublin 4 accent (so called after the postal code of one of Dublin’s most affluent neighborhoods). A possible escape from this kind of stereotypical identity ascription, for the disadvantaged person, would be the acquisition of the socially required and personally advantageous accent and register. This, however, may be difficult to achieve because language and accent are not chosen and are not malleable through discourse. This kind of identity ascription has, of course, more fundamental consequences than possible repercussions on the employment process (which is serious enough). We internalize aspects of our identity which are ascribed to us by others as part of our own identity in an identification process. George Herbert Mead defined these mutual social-constructive processes as early as the 1930s.⁶

6 Mead understood himself as a social behaviorist, or social psychologist. However, with his notion of the social constitution of self, mediated through language, he comes close to social constructionism.

192 | 6 The dynamics of identity The self is, according to Mead (1967: 135), “not initially there, at birth, but arises in the process of social experience and activity, that is, develops in the given individual as a result of his relations to that process as a whole and to other individuals within that process.” This process of internalizing the attitudes and roles of others is initially facilitated in child’s play where he or she playfully assumes the roles of others (for instance, cowboy, policeman, mother, etc.). Another step in this process is participation in games where the child “must know what everyone else is going to do in order to carry out his own play. He has to take on all of these roles” (Mead 1967: 151; emphasis added) in order to appropriately respond to the moves of the other players and initiate his own strategic moves within the rules of the game. This organized community of players “may be called ‘the generalized other’” (Mead 1967: 154). The generalized other can assign a variety of roles to the individual, indicating what he or she has to do. By internalizing this generalized other, the subject is able to develop agency within the rules of the game because he or she knows what activities are expected of him or her at particular phases of the game. Mead thus suggests that the self is a social product. He elaborates further on this aspect of identity, as he suggests that the attitudes of others provoke an agentive I which develops dialectically with the more reflective me (i.e., the social aspect of identity, or the internalized generalized other). “The attitudes of others constitute the organized ‘me’, and then one reacts towards that as an ‘I’” (Mead 1967: 175). However, the generalized other is not a stable entity or even an agentive aspect of identity that can act autonomously.⁷ “The ‘I’ is the response of the individual to the attitudes of the community as it appears in his own experience. His response to that organized attitude in turn changes it” (Mead 1967: 196). If the individual takes on the attitudes of the other – be it in the form of specific others (family or friends) or in that of the generalized other – towards his or her own self, he or she is able to see himself or herself in an objectified and distanced manner. “We cannot realize ourselves except in so far as we can recognize the other in his relationship to us. It is as he takes the attitude of the other that the individual is able to realize himself as a self” (Mead 1967: 194). It is through this ability to take on the attitude or the role of the other and to look at the I from that perspective, that the individual is able to become an object to himself or herself. This object, however, exists only through and in the relationship with others; the self-image is not passively taken over from others, but actively constructed against the background of the attitude of the other and the subjective attitude, intentions, and

7 In postmodern multicultural societies a self can be constructed in relation to a number of generalized others.

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desires. Furthermore, the agentive I can only be grasped in retrospect, after the act of acting when it is already moving to the me. Since the reflective I is always moving into the past, it is restructuring the me so that the I of any present moment is also reconfiguring itself in responding to the me; there is a continual dialectic in the relation of the I and the me. By taking on the role of the other, as he or she responds to the actions of others, the subject comes to understand who and what he or she is. The process of role-taking is a prerequisite for that of role-making, which requires a distance both from the self and from the sociocultural code of roles; the tensions within the socialized me have to be balanced in the predicative I. But it is not sufficient to take on the role just for others as a kind of one-dimensional outward performance. In order to fill the role from within, one has to be initiated into, and be competent in, the given discourse, genre, and the patterns of sociocultural construction.⁸ However, in social contexts the same person can take on several roles or identities (e.g., friend, boss, neighbor, man, professional, father, etc.). The sociological concept of role has been derived from the Discourse of the theatre. A good actress brings a part of her personality into the role without giving herself up as a person or losing herself in the role; after the performance she is once again her “original” self. The script determines how she has to act in her role and how the others will act; mutual expectations are not disappointed because the action is a priori regulated by the script of the play. In a similar manner, it is expected of the carrier of a social (including professional) role that he or she fulfills the requirements of that particular role; should he or she not do so, his or her prestige is lowered, and sanctions may be used to enforce role-compliant behavior. Therefore, roles exist independent of the carriers or actors, and the content of the role is determined by society or, more precisely, by the particular Discourse. These roles imply dramaturgical positionings which are not freely chosen by the subject but are required by the trappings of a particular role. However, dramaturgical positioning can limit the choice available to individuals in the manner and scope through which they play a particular role (cf. Davies and Harré 1990). People take up certain subjectpositions in social interaction which allows them to position themselves based on the requirements of the role, but with a degree of independence. A person usually takes up various subject-positions according to the D/discourses in which they engage.

8 A weakness of Mead’s theory is the vagueness of the concept of the agentive I. The I cannot be objectified (except retrospectively) because it then mutates to the me. Therefore, the impulsive I is construed monologically and is not able to engage in dialogue. In addition, Mead’s concept of me is orientated too much towards the notion of a harmonious society which leaves no room for inherent conflict and asymmetries.

194 | 6 The dynamics of identity Kramsch (2003: 133–4) suggests that the concepts of identity and role have to be complemented by that of voice which includes “all dimensions of style, such as point of view and modality in written narratives (. . . ) and stance and subjectivity in spoken exchanges” (Kramsch 2003: 133). It is through our voice that we can consciously and appropriately choose our identity and our role for certain situations, and perform them for others in D/discourses and activities. Kramsch (2003) emphasizes the notion of voice and its ability to explain the dialectical relationship between the body of knowledge encapsulated in Discourses and the constructs of identity and of role, i.e., “to capture the idea that utterances reproduce, subvert or create institutional roles and identities through the discursive choices they make” (Kramsch 2003: 133). One could, in parallel to Mead’s notion of the generalized other, even see the point of view of the group as a collective voice which is internalized by the subject as a basis for constructing his or her own voice. This voice integrates the expectations of the group towards the subject and the creative potential of the subject’s constructs of identity. The voice is being constituted by constant dialogue between the group (or community) and the subject; the group’s positioning is represented in the subject’s positioning, albeit in a subjectively refined manner. Due to membership in several groups, the subject’s voice is structurally plural; with reference to Bakhtin (cf. Section 4.1) one can speak of a polyphonic self in which the collective and subjective processes of identityformation are mutually intertwined and dialogically developing in the direction of a coherent identity which is always plural and transient. Whereas the concepts of identity and role are derived from sociology and psychology respectively, the notion of voice originates from literary studies and has subsequently been adapted by linguists. It refers to the active element of constructing meaning in given situations, including choosing which role to take on and which aspects of identity to display in particular interactions and situations. Like Mead’s symbolic interactionism, it pays more attention to the social side of identity-construction, compared to narrative accounts of identity. Therefore, it contributes to the maintenance of D/discourses but, of course, is also influenced by being situated within D/discourses: “In fact, if, as Bakhtin argues, the self exists only on the boundary between self and other, it can only develop a voice by positioning itself with respect to other voices and stances that others have taken. Personal voice must be ‘wrought’ from the institutionalized discourses in the environment” (Kramsch 2003: 133–4). Thus, the individual voice is derived from and performed in the language, culture, Discourses, and social practices of others. It has to be filled by the individual according to his or her particular understandings and aspirations in certain situations, vis-à-vis others. Filling the subjective voice means displaying and performing one’s identity for others. This provokes reactions of others to one’s

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performance which are then used by the individual to refine his or her identity, as displayed to others (cf. Mead’s generalized other). Speaking with a different voice in early L2 learning can mean taking on aspects of another identity which, with progressing L2 acquisition, blends with the L1 identity into a hybrid identity, located on a continuum between the languages and cultures involved. The initial decentering of one’s L1 identity can only be superficial, as the subject does not yet have sufficient access to the different linguistic system and its underlying cultural frame of reference. However, in the course of learning the L2, the subject will increasingly be enabled to access the differential cultural and discursive frame of reference and use it for constructing his or her identity and voice by drawing on two (or more) cultural worldviews.

6.6 Hybrid identities Concepts of identity, as analyzed in this chapter, have been criticized because, for all their openness, they remain based upon the logic of opposition in which identities are construed as distinct from one another and as deterministic of social action. These characteristics of identity seem to be at loggerheads with postmodern and poststructuralist notions of anti-essentialism. But some theoreticians question whether it is really possible to disregard any notions of essentialism in the project of construing and analyzing identity: [T]he analyst who refuses to any tuck with essentialism risks missing a factor of the highest importance in the identity’s construction. In other words, essentialism versus constructionism is not as mutually exclusive a distinction as it is normally taken to be, when what is being constructed is, in effect, an essentialising myth. (. . . ) [T]here must remain space for essentialism in our epistemology, or we can never comprehend the whole point for which identities are constructed. (Joseph 2004: 90)

With this criticism, Joseph echoes the paradox of the concept of poststructuralist notions of intersubjectivity, namely that, contrary to their anti-essentializing intentions, subjects and subjectivities are implied in the very term itself (cf. Section 4.6). The concept of identity is not dissimilar to those of intersubjectivity, interculturalism, hybridity, and third spaces (cf. Chapter 8) in that it is not an essential, stable, or monolithic construct, but a highly dynamic, porous, and flexible concept. It is neither the one nor the other, but constitutes an intermediary space spread out between people, Discourses, genres, cultural frames of reference, social practices, and linguistic conceptualizations. It is also important to stress that identity is not predominantly understood as an internal state, but rather as a discursive construct that is facilitated – and restricted – by the Discourses,

196 | 6 The dynamics of identity narratives, genres, cultural patterns, and practices available to the individual, the group, and the community. If one does not reject the notion of identity altogether as an outdated and obsolete construct of reductive and false essentializations of persons, groups, cultures, and communities, identity has to be conceptualized as a hybrid, multilayered, dynamic, and polyphonic narrative construct that is mediated and maintained by socioculturally generated semiotic systems and by patterns of action. The concept of identity is subjectively and socially relevant because it provides the potential for establishing and maintaining relational frames for the subjective notion of an autonomous self that can consciously act in different social contexts in a coherent manner. This function is a precondition for leading a self-determined life (at least from a subjective perspective) and understanding oneself to be the indexical center of action. As shown in this chapter, identities are neither merely inherited nor freely chosen, but have to be wrought from linguistic and cultural concepts, categories, and frames, and from the genres, narratives, and D/discourses available to the subject; at the same time, they have to be enacted, contested, and performed by the individual and, where appropriate, by the social group. Subjective notions of personal identity are also influenced by aspirations of what one wants to be; these aspirations are, in turn, a product of the sociocultural practices of others, as selected and emphasized by the individual, be it consciously or not. If there is a stable element inherent in the notion of identity it is, apart from a person’s DNA, the stability of constant change as aspects of identity continuously have to be constructed, deconstructed, and reconstructed, even if these complex processes remain largely on a subconscious level. Young (1995) even suggests that the fluid and constantly changing character of identity is a sign of a newly found stability for people in (post-)modern times: “Today’s selfproclaimed mobile and multiple identities may be a marker not of contemporary social fluidity and dispossessions but of a new stability, self-assurance and quietism. Fixity of identity is only sought in situations of instability and disruption, of conflict and change” (Young 1995: 4). The concept of identity, understood as multi-layered and dynamic, is relevant for the individual’s sense of personal identity, but is also important for others when interacting with people as they try to establish the social identity of the interlocutor, and the underlying voices and the related positions of power. As Tajfel (1978: 61) points out, one of the major tools which people use to define themselves in the social world in which they live is social categorization, that is, “the ordering of social environment in terms of groupings of persons in a manner which makes sense to the individual.” Once people become aware of belonging to particular social groups, their social identities begin to form, based to a large extent on

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cultural patterns of interpretation, contained in and mediated through language (but to a lesser degree also mediated through other semiotic tools, for instance, clothes, ways of talking, behavior, etc.). Thus, subjects who are stakeholders in different Discourses must be open to code-switching, tolerance of ambiguity, and polyphonic identity-construction. These notions are nicely captured in the following reflections on the question Who am I?, written by a young Turkish Kurd who was born in Berlin and grew up in Germany: Birkan Düz: Ich bin Birkan Ich bin in Berlin geboren und bin 16 Jahre alt. Manchmal bin ich Deutscher. Manchmal bin ich Türke. Manchmal bin ich Kurde. Manchmal bin ich Alevite. Manchmal bin ich Zaza. Wenn ich in der Türkei bin, sage ich den Menschen dort, dass ich ein Deutscher bin. Wenn ich in Deutschland bin, sagen die Menschen zu mir, dass ich ein Türke bin. Oder ich sage, dass ich ein Türke bin. Unter kurdischen Freunden sage ich, dass ich ein Kurde bin. Wenn ich unter Aleviten bin, sage ich, dass ich Alevite bin. Wenn ich unter Zazas bin, sage ich, dass ich Zaza bin. Wenn ich unter Deutschen bin, fühle ich mich anders. Ich fühle mich als Türke dann. Wenn ich unter Türken bin, fühle ich mich als Deutscher. Wenn ich unter Kurden, Aleviten, Zazas bin, fühle ich mich gleich mit denen. Wenn ich alleine bin, fühle ich mich als Alevite. Wenn ich alleine bin, fühle ich mich als Birkan. Wenn ich unter Deutschen, Türken, Kurden, Aleviten, Zazas bin, fühle ich mich wie ich. Ich bin Birkan. http://www.spiegel.de/schulspiegel/leben/0,1518,621642-2,00.html (Accessed 28/04/2013)

[I am Birkan, by Birkan Düz I was born in Berlin, and I am 16 years old. Sometimes I am German. Sometimes I am a Turk. Sometimes I am a Kurd. Sometimes I am an Alevi. Sometimes I am a Zaza.

198 | 6 The dynamics of identity When I am in Turkey, I tell the people there that I am German. When I am in Germany, people tell me that I am a Turk. Or I say that I am a Turk. Amongst Kurdish friends, I say that I am a Kurd. When I am with Alevi people, I say that I am an Alevi. When I am with Zaza people, I say that I am a Zaza. When I am with Germans I feel different. At these times, I feel like a Turk. When I am with Turks, I feel German. When I am with Kurds, Alevis, Zazas, I feel that I am just like them. When I am alone, I feel like an Alevi. When I am alone, I feel like Birkan. When I am with Germans, Turks, Kurds, Alevis, and Zazas, I feel like me. I am Birkan. (My translation, A.W.)]

This text is only one of about 100 entries for an exhibition in 2009, written by young Berlin migrants, reflecting on their intercultural identities and positions as migrants in Berlin. In this text, Birkan tries to define his multiple and hybrid identities. He is a member of the ethnic groups of Zazas and Kurds, and the religious group of Alevis, all of which transgress national boundaries in that they are found in significant numbers not only in Turkey, but also in Syria and Iraq. However, due to his ancestry, Birkan is confronted with the national identity of Turkey, a country that contains these ethnic and religious groups, albeit in a very fractured relationship. The Turkish national identity clearly is an ascribed identity, ascribed by Germans in the country and city where he was born. Germans do not usually distinguish between ethnicities living in another country but simply label all people living in Turkey as Turks. Birkan, however, does not identify with this ascribed national Turkish identity because his Kurdish people have a long history of conflict with the Turks. Therefore, he identifies much more with Kurds, Alevis, and Zazas, and even here he prefers the Alevi religious identity, rather than an ethnically defined identity. However, having been born and raised in Germany (and most likely carrying a German passport), he also feels to have some sort of German national identity. This layer of his identity is emphasized whenever he visits Turkey because the people there ascribe this German identity to him (possibly due to his fragile Turkish language skills which position him in the passive), in a direct reversal of the typical German identity-ascription process of him being a Turk. Therefore, Birkan seems to base his ethnic constructs of identity on his Kurdish and Zaza identities, and not so much on the national Turkish and German identities. His primary source of constructs of identity, however, seems to

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relate to the religiously defined Alevi community. But since the national Turkish and German identities also play a role in the many layers of his ethnic identity (and we even have not mentioned other identities, such as an adolescent, pupil, [grand-]child, boyfriend, member of clubs, etc.), he feels that his subjective construals of personal identity seem best captured in his first name Birkan. Although this name was given to him by his parents, it seems, for him, to capture all the different layers of his identity in a comprehensive manner. The same may be true for his inner circle of friends and relatives who are responsible for his notions of primary me in Mead’s sense. The name of a person stays with him or her, while the social foundation of other aspects of identity (such as being a Kurd, Alevi, Zaza, etc.) means that they may be valid only for some period of time, and are hence exchangeable. However, the generalized other does not only include this closer circle of others but also people he meets just once in passing, be it in the shop, on the bus, in the street, etc. who see him as a Turk (in Germany), or as a German (in Turkey). Thus, his constructs of me also have to include these ascriptions of national identities. Birkan’s reflections illuminate the processes of construing multiple identities, as triggered by intensive L2 acquisition. Hybrid, multilayered, and dynamic concepts of identity have the potential to undermine simple narratives of citizenship, operating with monolithic national identities which demand a sense of belonging. In some countries allegiance to patriotism is expected, particularly in times of terror, and the identification with other languages and their inherent cultural frames of mind may be considered unpatriotic. The demands of L2 learning introduce a completely new dimension into the complex process of constructing one’s identities, since identification with a specific group becomes less important and the subject might be more used to incorporating a wide variety of language usage, according to the range of different positionings he or she has taken on in various forms of L2 encounters. Thus, sustained L2 learning can have fundamental effects on the identity-constructs of the learner. On the one hand, it can be perceived as a threat to constructs of personal identity because the tacitly assumed and unquestioned “normality” of one’s constructs which rely on monolingual and monocultural categories might be undermined. Nationalists and patriots may even perceive the preparedness to adopt interculturally hybrid identities as an act of subversion which should be avoided. This perception may reduce, or even end, the preparedness to further engage with learning the second language as a form of critical distancing from one’s L1 and its cultural community, and cause the learner to withdraw to the perceived safeties of the first language and socioculture. On the other hand, the increasing availability of alternative categories of construction, inherent in the second language and its sociocultural context, can be used as an opportunity to broaden one’s constructs of identity along the

200 | 6 The dynamics of identity lines of an aspired intercultural identity. Thus, learning a L2 provides the learner with new structures, patterns, media, and possible contents of autobiographical narration, necessitating the negotiation of new layers of identity and new subject positions. It also puts at the disposal of the L2 learner new categories for discursive negotiations of identities; these are first and foremost the conceptual blends, the Discursive structures, and cultural patterns of the L2 community, but can also affect elementary attitudinal constructs of identity. This process is exemplified in the attitude of a British learner of French who has come to see his national identity very critically, after having lived for some years in France and experienced Britishness through the lens of a different language and culture: “I see a sense of Britishness as being like a British bulldog or [. . . ] very nationalistic, very [. . . ] kind of – some thing [sic] that’s very powerful, but a very negative force, and therefore I choose not to identify with it” (Coffey 2010: 72; square brackets in the original). Here, the L2 learner has consciously distanced himself from the traditional conservative “bulldog” identity of Britain as a nation, which, according to conservative politicians and the British populist press, is still anchored in the tradition of Churchill’s bulldog spirit of standing up for Britain against Nazi Germany (concentrated in his famous lines of 1940: “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender”). From a less British and more continental European Union (EU) perspective, these lines are no longer as valid as they were during Britain’s war efforts of the 1940s;⁹ therefore, they can no longer be a valid part of a British identity as a modern and open-minded people. Hybrid identities, therefore, have a crossculturally liberating effect on the mind and positioning of the subject, rather than subverting the patriotism of the individual, which conservatives (mis-)construe as one of imminent dangers of developing interculturally hybrid identities.

9 However, many British conservatives urged Prime Minister Cameron to exhibit exactly this “bulldog” spirit at the EU summit in December 2011 which he did by vetoing closer cooperation in the EU.

7 The complexities of culture Language is to a large extent shaped by culture, but the reverse is also true to some degree: culture is shaped by language. Due to this close link between language and culture, L2 acquisition cannot be restricted to the linguistic system alone, but must include the cultural patterns of construction and the social habits of language use, as was analyzed in the previous chapters. In this chapter, the intimate relation of language and culture will be examined. The emphasis here will be on the cultural elements, as the linguistic, conceptual, and sociolinguistic influence on the mind of subjects was the object of analysis in Chapters 2–4. Subjective notions of identity, meaning, understanding, and intention are fundamentally facilitated, created and situated in the framework of culturally generated and maintained patterns, conventions, and schemata of construing self, Other, and world mediated by language. Culture establishes, for each subject, a generative context of cognitive, physical, and affective behavior which serves as a template for a subjective and social existence, even if one wants to resist the dominant cultural stance and carve out a divergent space, thus contributing to the plurilarization of the culture. Although all cultures have inherent conflicts, frictions, and asymmetries, culture provides sufficient cohesive attributes for broadly unifying different groups and perspectives within a cultural community so that its members are recognizable both from within and outside this community. Without cultural knowledge of how to understand, act, and interact in a given sociocultural context, a reflective human existence would be impossible; tacit cultural knowledge provides the matrix for interpretative practices applied by the group members, subjectively and collectively. Such tacit knowledge manifests itself in the form of pragmatic presuppositions, conversational implicatures, judgments of relevance, interpretive procedures, values, beliefs, emotions, and patterns of action and interaction. Subjective cognition is not restricted to the individual human mind alone; it is also both embodied and socioculturally situated. Consequently, human activity structures, but is also structured by, conceptual properties of the biological, social, and material worlds which are relatively stable. In turn, culturally constructed and linguistically mediated meaning forms the primary basis which people use to organize and control their mental functioning. Culture in this sense obviously does not primarily refer to a set of material manifestations, for instance, artifacts of literature, music, the arts, or architecture, but is understood as a supraindividual generative matrix providing patterns of interpretation and construction in a social and material world which has already been interpreted by others in a phylogenetic dimension. This view implies that culture is rooted in the

202 | 7 The complexities of culture historical production of patterns of significance, as realized in the distributed social practices of a cultural community. Culture is not a singular entity, but can be perceived as operating on many levels, for example, on a macro-level of institutions and organizations, a meso-level of collective group interaction, and a micro-level of the subject trying to make sense of self, world, and others on the basis of the patterns and structures provided by the culture of the community into which the he or she has been socialized. On all three levels, culture is to be understood as being neither static nor essential but as constantly emerging through interactive processes within intersubjective social practice: “Culture is never liable to fall into fixity, stasis or organic totalization: the constant construction and reconstruction of cultures and cultural difference is fuelled by an unending internal dissension in the imbalances of the capitalist economies that produce them” (Young 1995: 53). Every culture is internally diverse, and its range of interpretive possibility cannot be determined in precise terms. These tendencies make it notoriously difficult to define culture in its dynamic complexity, as James Clifford (1986: 10) famously remarked: “‘Cultures’ do not hold still for their portraits.” Consequently, holistic and essentialist conceptualizations of culture are highly reductive, and thus wrong. Culture is extremely difficult to define, as it oscillates in a multi-layered network of relations between the poles of the individual and society, action and structure, cognition and communication, action and interaction, processuality and interruption.¹ Raymond Williams (1976: 87) ranks the term culture as “one of the two or three most complicated words in the English language” to define (the same being true for any other language which uses this term). Culture is not a monolithic concept; there are inherent frictions, conflicts, and mixing of influences which can be regionally or socially induced but can also originate from the pursuit of particular interests, constellations of power, and ideologies. Inherent in every shared culture there is sub-cultural diversity “which it wishes to open up and diversify and not replace with another” (Parekh 2006: 4). Culture provides its members with a range of divergent options for individual use in terms of thinking, feeling, and (inter-)acting. The members of a cultural community know about and accept intracultural differences so that culture still provides an overall element of cohesion to all members. This element of cohesion could not be created without an element of imagination (cf. Anderson 1991) because, for practical reasons, face-to-face communication between all members of the communities is impossible to achieve. Therefore, a

1 Sometimes, small children with German as the L1 tend to think that culture can be contained in a small bag, the Kulturbeutel [culture bag]. However, this misconception is caused by the German term for what is known in English as a toiletry bag.

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mental image of what the community and its members should be is collectively produced (in a constantly ongoing fashion) to which the individual members subscribe, albeit subjectively to different degrees. This element of cohesion unifies the apparent contradiction of the individual’s autonomy and the observable solidarity of large and complex cultural communities. The huge complexity of the concept of culture originates from its dynamism, as Terry Eagleton (2000) suggests: it engages in complicated ways with the concept of nature (in that nature produces culture, which in turn changes nature); on the social level, it oscillates between a tendency to pacify by way of communicative mediation and understanding, and affinity to occupation and invasion. Furthermore, as Eagleton suggests, it oscillates between “freedom and determinism, action and endurance, change and identity, the given and the created” (Eagleton 2000: 2), and boldly combines epistemological positions like naturalism and idealism; it is also skeptical towards determinism and voluntarism, and inherently combines rationalism and spontaneity, rationality and passion, and ratio and affect. Hence, culture maintains order in a society (by providing rules which have to be followed) but also provides ways for transforming order. As a matrix, culture provides its members with psychological structures which guide aspects of their thought and (inter-)action, thus helping to develop a sense of community. Due to its inherent complexity and fluidity, the study of culture ranges from the analysis of its material manifestations, for instance, literature, music, art, architecture, and landscapes, to the study of a set of tacit principles, patterns, beliefs, norms, and values to which the majority of the members of a cultural community subscribe. A comprehensive definition of culture would have to be as flexible and dynamic as the concept itself, which in turn leaves it very open and “disablingly wide” (Eagleton 2000: 32) for use in specific contexts. Therefore, it seems to make little sense to try to arrive at a single conclusive definition of culture. A good example of such a comprehensive definition of a dynamic concept of culture is provided by Matsumoto (2000): “Culture is a dynamic system of rules, explicit and implicit, established by groups in order to ensure their survival, involving attitudes, beliefs, norms, and behaviours, shared by a group but harboured differently by each specific unit within the group, communicated across generations, relatively stable but with the potential to change across time” (Matsumoto 2000: 24). Although this definition of culture captures the most relevant aspects inherent in the concept, it remains quite vague as to what exactly is meant by these different aspects.² Thus, more valid definitions of culture would 2 However, Matsumoto does not provide this definition without commentary; he follows it up with an explication of each of the key aspects that are embedded in his general definition of culture (Matsumoto 2000: 24–26).

204 | 7 The complexities of culture be those which refer to specific contexts and Discourses. Culture, as a concept, is multi-discursive, and hence, Discourse-dependent definitions of culture usually put emphasis on only one aspect, or a few aspects, of culture in a context-specific manner which Eagleton (2000: 32) sees as “discomfortingly rigid.”³ However, a common denominator among these different context-related approaches is, on a formal level, the conceptualization of culture as an organized and self-organizing, complex, and relatively autonomous system that is constituted by the different elements of culture. Of all of these, the semiotic system of language holds a central position, since culture is mainly discursively constituted and distributed. Culture could not exist without language, and language could not exist as a refined semiotic system without culture. Göller (2000) emphasizes this intimate connection by suggesting: “Menschliche Sinnverständigung, intra- oder interkulturelle Kommunikation und Interaktion (. . . ) ist in erster Linie an Sprache gebunden bzw. sprachlich vermittelt. Dies gilt für alle Formen intra- und interkulturellen Austauschs” [Human sense-making, intra- or intercultural communication and interaction (. . . ) is above all tied to language or is mediated through language. This is the case for all forms of intra- and intercultural exchange] (Göller 2000: 330; my translation, A.W.). On the content level, culture is conceptualized as a medium which mediates between the human being and his or her environment. In this context of cognitive correlation between information and communication, culture provides the basic options for constructing meaning and action on individual and collective levels, be it linguistically or otherwise. Culture, then, can be understood as a set of distributed and broadly shared interpretations of beliefs, attitudes, values, and norms, affecting the behaviors of a community of people (cf. Lustig and Koester 1999: 30). Culture in this sense provides the matrix for generating realities and structuring meaning (on a metalevel) for the members of a particular cultural community; it mediates rules, concepts, schemata, frames, norms, value-judgments, and patterns for – subjective as well as collective – understanding, constructing, acting, and interacting. These elements are constantly available for both the individual and the collective as implicit, or tacit, knowledge that can be stabilized and made explicit in social conventions. Thus, culture provides the distributed categorical framework for a model of reality (or realities) that all members of a social system share – albeit subjectively to different degrees. Cultural patterns and forms are integral to all constructs of self, Other, and others; they are carried forward from generation to generation.

3 For a comprehensive overview of these approaches, cf. Duranti 1997: 23–50.

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However, this conceptualization of culture runs the danger of promoting essentialist and deterministic tendencies; it homogenizes the contingencies and breaks which are inherent in cultural practices, and tends to ignore the caesuras and splits, pointing to the Other within a culture, for instance, in vertical (class, age) and horizontal (regional) dimensions. Essentialist conceptualizations of culture are wrong for several reasons: 1. They are too static and consequently cannot grasp processes of cultural innovation; 2. they have a tendency to harmonize (up to a point of ignoring) the inner tensions and contradictions inherent within cultures; 3. they neglect the agency of subjects by emphasizing the normative force of traditional patterns of knowledge; 4. they operate with a strict opposition of “culture” and “society,” thus tending to ignore the manifold and complex interrelationships between the two systems; 5. they tend to promote determinism and reductionism which can lead to a regression from cultural to ethnic (and at worst biological-racial) reasonings; 6. they ignore the hybridity of cultures, as there are always complex interplays between different cultures; 7. they tend to lack empirical correctives and thus cannot eliminate the danger of stabilizing stereotypes of the Other (cf. Osterhammel 2004: 62). Therefore, some academics (e.g., Hess 1992; Altmayer 2004) reject the concept of culture altogether (along with its derivatives of interculturality, multiculturality, transculturality, crossculturality, etc.) and replace it with the concept of the subject, because it is ultimately he or she who is the cultural agent and social actor.⁴ But the subject cannot be seen as an isolated individual, cut off from other individuals, discourses, language, community, and culture because “human beings are culturally embedded in the sense that they grow up and live within a culturally structured world, organize their lives and social relations in terms of its system of meaning and significance, and place considerable value on their cultural identity” (Parekh 2006: 336). Culture is a system of values, beliefs, and practices which gives significance to and structures individual and collective lives. Each individual is shaped by the cultural community into which he or she has been socialized. Membership of a cultural community is participatory in terms of engaging in its common social and moral Discourses and taking up a subject-position, even if it means rejecting some of the main manifestations of that culture. Every culture is open to reformist resources from within (and to a much lesser extent from outside) 4 Altmayer’s approach is slightly different, cf. Section 9.5.

206 | 7 The complexities of culture so that it can adapt to changing conditions and circumstances; an example of this would be the changed view of the status of women and ethnic or religious minorities in Western society over the last century. If the concept of culture operated with notions of one unifying culture, contained in one nation, and shared equally among its citizens, it would indeed fall into this trap of determinism and essentialism. But in postmodern cultural studies, such a normative concept of culture has been abandoned. It has been recognized that every concept of culture simply has to operate with some assumptions of continuity and coherence of time, space, and social aspects which express certain commonalities in the everyday life of certain people, but these assumptions are not usually determinative. These concepts of culture by no means imply complete homogeneity, but acknowledge the partial and limited coherence and continuity as well as the impossibility of defining in detail distinctions from other cultures. They recognize that culture must “be acknowledged to designate myriad socially produced, arranged, and employed symbolic and material aspects of the world that attain what coherence they might have in the invocations and practices of the social actors who develop and encounter them” (Hall, Grindstaff, and Lo 2010: 5). Postmodern concepts emphasize the role of culture in creating super-individual patterns of thought, D/discourse, and behavior. However, cultures always have open boundaries and are permeable to outside influences. In addition, an expanded concept of culture differentiates between regional, particular, micro, and special cultures which are not necessarily bound to specific, geographically definable territories. A de-territorialized concept of culture includes socially definable “locations of culture” (Bhabha 1994) such as youth culture, migrant culture, academic culture, etc. When one uses concepts of culture in the context of second language learning and teaching, it is obvious that one has to move away from looking at culture in the singular. What is needed is to think about cultures in the plural sense because at least two cultures are involved, and the cultural patterns of these two cultures are compared, contrasted, analyzed, and played out. In these processes, the L2 learner may be led to discover that cultures are only ascribed similarities and differences in the process of active differentiation from one another by people moving in two (or more) cultures, such as, for example, the L2 learner. This approach implies that one also has to consider the complex relationships between cultures, or more precisely, between corresponding elements and configurations of cultures – or even categories which refuse to be conceptualized as cross-culturally applicable. However, the subjective L2 learner, as well as the group of learners, also has to come into focus, as he or she embarks on a journey away from hitherto taken-for-granted conceptualizations of the L1 culture towards ever-shifting interculturally blended third places (cf. Chapter 8).

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7.1 Culture as distributed knowledge The notion of culture as shared knowledge has been informed by the works of many researchers, among them Alfred Schütz (concept of typification and interpretative schemata), Claude Lévi-Strauss (concept of binary systems of difference and symbolic order), Pierre Bourdieu (concept of habitus schemata), Michel Foucault (theory of codes of knowledge), Erving Goffman (concept of frames), Charles Taylor (concept of background knowledge), and Clifford Geertz (notion of cultural models). Although different in their details, these approaches broadly share some fundamental assumptions, for example, the rejection of the Cartesian dualism of a self-enclosed human unit (res cogitans) and of an independent outer world (res extensa); instead, they aim at restoring a proper balance between external and internal human realities. In order to achieve this goal, these approaches take into account the dynamic roles of social context, individuality, intentionality, and the sociocultural, historical, and institutional situation of the socially active individual, conducting his or her everyday life. These approaches are not primarily interested in direct and one-dimensional causal explanations for visible human behavior; rather, they try to reconstruct human behavior from within the complex social, societal, and cultural network of action. For this reason, they tend to promote the category of subjective meaning as central for understanding human behavior. This implies that the daily Lebenswelt (Schütz), or life-world, of the (inter-)actants, with its complex and multi-faceted interconnections and underlying cultural patterns, moves into the focus of analysis, as it provides the generative framework for continuously ongoing subjective processes of meaning-making. The term Lebenswelt implies that “we enact our lives socially, episodically, in relation to other people” (Hall, Grindstaff, and Lo 2010: 5). The world of daily life is not only the scene, but also the object of our actions and interactions. Society is composed of many different life-worlds, that is, networked relationships that have developed through intersubjective interactions. Cultural knowledge, then, can be defined as the conventionally constructed and broadly shared cognitive, behavioral, and affective resources of a cultural community.⁵ It is formed, maintained, and transformed as a consequence of continuously ongoing processes of negotiation and renegotiation in interactions that

5 Like individuals, communities are also not stable and unitary entities. Although many communities claim unity, they are in fact fragile constructs, imagined units (Anderson 1991) or phantasmagoric signifiers. They present themselves as stable and coherent only by performative, ideological, and psychological effort through which differences are repressed and the Other is excluded (cf. During 2005: 32).

208 | 7 The complexities of culture occur as the members of a particular community go about their everyday lives. Culture in this sense consists of a system of rules, beliefs, values, behaviors, and orientations that is tacit, anonymous, and not usually consciously available to the (inter-)acting members of a cultural community. Only in situations where, in a certain instance, the intersubjective constitution of meaning was unsuccessful may the reasons for this mishap be consciously analyzed. This may lead to a process of raising the level of awareness of some (typically implicit and automated) cultural patterns of forming attitudes, values, thoughts, beliefs, and (communicative) behavior. However, this is the exception for both subjective and social behavior and action because the vast bulk of cultural knowledge is taken for granted and remains on a subconscious level, unquestioned and unreflected upon. Yet, tacit cultural knowledge effectively guides acts of meaning, interpreting, and understanding and also informs performative (inter-)acting of individuals and groups in particular social contexts. Thus, it contributes tacitly, yet decisively, to subjective and collective construals of identity, reality, and the world at large. It also provides the blueprint for actively coping with all kinds of immediate situations which all members of a cultural collective deploy as the basis for their (inter-)actions. On a social level of ordinary everyday interactions, it provides the patterns that guide participants in their judgments of the kind of genre and Discourse the immediate interaction is situated in, what to expect next from the other interlocutors, how to get clues about the identity of the other(s), and how to react and act meaningfully in response to the action and interaction of others. In addition, it also defines, on a subconscious level, the parameters of what to say explicitly, what to leave unsaid, what to imply (or infer), and what to assume and expect in certain situation-types of interaction. Cultural knowledge and patterns of cognitive and emotional construction are basically re-inscribed in the minds of every generation of members in a cultural community through the complex processes of socialization, lingualization, and enculturation, and through ongoing active participation in social life (cf. Chapters 2 & 3). Although this re-inscription process has the potential to introduce changes in cultural knowledge, these are always very short-reaching and of such negligible effect for an extremely specialized part of a specific body of knowledge that they can never affect in an instant the main body of cultural knowledge at large.

Whereas this observation is true for most communities, it is not for cultural communities, as they do not have an essence but depend on the participation of members for maintaining and its systems of beliefs and practices. They are internally plural and contain inherent breaks and constant development of their traditions and strands of thought; hence their identity is plural and fluid.

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Right from the moment of birth, each subject enters a world of meaning that has been constructed by generations of people before him or her in a historical dimension. This prefabricated network of knowledge fundamentally helps the subject to make sense of his or her direct and indirect social and material environment so that it is not necessary for each child to start from a blank slate in his or her efforts to construe the world anew. The process of developing and acquiring cultural knowledge is structured by socially organized processes of selection and production of meaning. By inscribing cultural patterns during socialization, culture does the following to the developing subjective mind: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Culture arranges the occurrence or non-occurrence of specific basic problem-solving environments embodied in cultural practices. Culture also organizes the frequency of occurrence of these basic practices. Culture shapes the patterning of co-occurrence of events. Culture regulates the level of difficulty of the tasks within contexts (so that the balance between learning successes and failures is regulated).

(Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition 1983: 335, cited in Valsiner and van der Veer 2000: 397)

Thus, culture is not only “out there” in a sphere of its own, but it actually does something to our minds. It ties us in, by means of semiotics (e.g. language), with the prevailing norms, values, and attitudes of our cultural community and therefore provides guidance for our appropriate behavior, interaction, and thought processes. All three elements, mind, culture, and language, are intrinsically linked together and intimately interwoven, as Elinor Ochs explains: I am socialized to understand and recognize who I am and who you are and what you and I are doing at any one moment in time in part because our linguistic practices characterize us and our actions in certain ways (i.e., give us and our actions meaning). In this sense, language practice is a hand-maiden to culture, a medium for the passing of cultural knowledge from one generation to the next. (Ochs 1996: 408)

In this way, the collectively created, maintained, and distributed cultural knowledge becomes (mainly via the medium of language)⁶ a subjective cognitive resource for the individual’s mind that assumes a pivotal guiding and orientating influence on individual and social action. Thus, we are socialized into plausibility

6 The iconic turn, conceptualized as a response to the dominant linguistic turn, suggests that there are other important media for the storage and communication of meaning, for instance, photographs, films, maps, pictures, etc. (cf. Bachmann-Medick 2006: 329–380). Although this is certainly the case, the vast bulk of human memory and interaction does use the medium of language, including the explanation and interpretation of the visually represented figurations.

210 | 7 The complexities of culture structures, that is, conceptual understandings of the world which are supported by rational networks. As we come to rely on these plausibility structures, so do we develop a sense of a “natural,” taken-for-granted reality (cf. Chapter 3). Human beings, in contrast to animals, therefore live in a self-generated universe of symbols or, as Geertz (1973: 5) characterizes this configuration, “man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun.” The symbolic modes of construing, (inter-)acting, and feeling maintain a culture’s particular web of significance. The symbols have been created by humans over many generations through a myriad of experiences and interactions, and they are adopted by every member of a cultural community before being passed on to the next generation. Every human existence relies on a familiar understanding of the figurations of the symbolic worlds of culture and language through meaningful contexts of referral which facilitate immediate routinized understanding (cf. Reckwitz 2000: 88). Its individual expression adheres to the construction of meaning, i.e., assigning meaning to symbols, things, thoughts, actions, attitudes, affects, or experiences in different settings on particular occasions, according to their appropriate cultural contexts, in order to know what they are about. Although meanings are constructed, with or without conscious effort, in the subjective mind spontaneously in specific situated contexts, they have their origins and their significance in the culture in which they have been produced. Hence, they do not refer to private inner states of people but are discursively produced, maintained, and distributed. LeVine (1984) explains this dialectical process: Culture cannot be reduced to its explicit or implicit dimensions. It would be fallacious to take what is given by the informants at face value and assume that the rest of behavior and belief is untouched by culture. It is equally fallacious to discount explicit rules, beliefs, and labels as lacking social or psychological reality or as mere reflections of, or disguises for, implicit cultural orientations. In culture, as an organization of shared meanings, some meanings are more implicit than others, for reasons having to do with the pragmatics of social life and their history for a given society. (LeVine 1984: 77)

The differences in implicitness can refer to the state of subjective cultural knowledge; for example, a child might require more explicit guidance in understanding irony or sarcasm than adults. Meaning is always situated in a given culture which ensures its smooth negotiability and communicability among those who share the cultural knowledge. Bruner (1996: 3) emphasizes, “Whether ‘private meaning’ exists is not the point; what is important is that meanings provide a basis for cultural exchange.” These culturally generated meanings do not only refer to conceptualizations of words and utterances which are generally linguistically mediated. They also refer to culturally established concepts, frames, and schemata (cf. Chapter 3) derived from the daily Lebenswelt of people; from this dynamic

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basis, they have been (and continue to be) culturally categorized and historically sedimented. These schematic structures, relating to certain objects or configurations, provide presupposed patterns of cultural understanding, action, and interaction that members of a culture apply tacitly and subconsciously, for instance with regard to juju in parts of West Africa. As Ciompi (1997: 47) has convincingly shown, schemata also include emotional elements which are, to a large extent, also culture-specific, for example, mourning over the loss of a pet (widely accepted in North America and Europe but unknown in other parts of the world). The process of implicit and incidental acquisition of cultural knowledge implies that it exists largely independently of subjective experiences. Since it informs and coordinates thought and (inter-)action, it can be defined as an “operative fiction” (Schmidt 2003: 24, my translation, A.W.) with structuring qualities for both the individual mind and the cultural collective. It is a fiction because culture in its psychologically distributed form only materializes in singular instances but never reveals itself in its totality. Distributed cultural knowledge facilitates a range of thoughts and (inter-)actions from which the constructs considered to be the most appropriate are chosen and performed by the subject. Therefore, cultural knowledge is also characterized by potential reflexivity because the subject can reflect upon the best available option of thought or action. Cultural knowledge is not restrained to cognitive knowledge alone but also includes normative, behavioral, and emotional dimensions, as well as socially mediated values, attitudes, predispositions, and motivations, which are normally not consciously available. These tacit aspects can be raised to consciousness only in exceptional circumstances for brief instants, for example, when expected consequences of habitual action do not transpire, or when miscommunication occurs (cf. Ciompi 1997). Taken together, all elements of distributed cultural knowledge provide the framework for constituting a subjectively viable and valid “objective” social world that is negotiated between the members of a cultural collective. This means that social “reality” is not something that exists outside of, and independent from, the symbolic world humans are living in, but that it is being continuously constructed in communicative acts and collaborative activities among members of a cultural group. Since notions of “reality” are always symbolically (pre-)structured by cultural knowledge, any attempt by the social sciences, including second language acquisition research, to analyze or understand this subjectively or socially maintained “reality” must aim to decipher the relevant aspects of the distributed cultural knowledge and the social quality of the data – rather than ignoring these symbolically meaningful categories, as, for example, the methods of empirically-analytical approaches tend to do. Interpretive approaches to analyzing culture try to reconstruct the underlying cultural reasons why people act in a particular way from the basis of their

212 | 7 The complexities of culture actual life-world – rather than from the cultural and social systems, as the latter ultimately depend on the former. Whereas the cognitive tradition advocates the search for generalizations, based on the assumed power of statistical procedures, it is necessary to take into consideration the messy, ambiguous, and contextsensitive processes of constructing meaning in the hurly-burly of everyday life, the heteroglossia of language, and the polyphonic self. In order to get access to an insider’s view of the other culture, one has to try to empathetically identify with the subjects living in the other language community (in terms of motivations, attitudes, values, beliefs, etc.); only in this manner is the observer in a position to make sense of what the other person is doing, particularly by reconstructing his or her subjective perspective from within the social, cultural, and situational context in which he or she (inter-)acts. Such an approach to the understanding of behavior and action can be sensitive to the subtleties of a situation in a way that statistical procedures can never be. Hence, the subjective common-sense world as a daily enacted social reality, or the Lebenswelt, comes into focus of such an approach. Schütz and Luckmann (1974) define the common-sense Lebenswelt as the area of reality which the attentive adult takes unquestioningly for granted: “The world of daily life is given to us in a taken-for-granted way. (. . . ) The province of meaning of this world retains the accent of reality as long as our practical experiences confirm its unity and harmony” (Schütz and Luckmann 1974: 35). The term life-world expresses the horizon of all relevant experiences of the subject against which things, actions, and activities appear meaningful. The life-world is lived (German erlebt) by the subject, and it lives with the subject. However, the life-world cannot be constructed by the subject in isolation, as it relies on pre-constructed sociocultural elements in a historical dimension and, more importantly, on permanently ongoing co-construction with other people. This refers to both material and social realities, which means that the life-world is inherently intersubjectively constructed and accessible to the subject by cognitive efforts: “The everyday life-world is (. . . ) fundamentally intersubjective; it is a social world. All acts whatever refer to meaning that is explicable by me and must be explicated by me if I wish to find my way about in the life-world. Interpretation of meaning, ‘understanding’, is a fundamental principle of the natural attitude with regard to my fellow men” (Schütz and Luckmann 1974: 16). The Lebenswelt is not a static given, although it may appear so to the subject, but the dynamic result of constitutive acts of interpreting experiences and worlds on the part of individuals (in the plural). This process is facilitated by socially mediated and subjectively internalized stocks of cultural knowledge. Cultural knowledge includes categorizations of experiences, time, space, interactions, memories, emotions, and, on a profane level, frames of objects, such as hills and rocks, trees, and animals, including sub-typifications as granite, oak-tree, bird, fish, etc.

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All acts of subjective construction are related to this internalized stock of knowledge (which in the process of interaction can be changed at the margins). The subject’s “relative-natural world view (. . . ) is a system of communicable typifications of the life-world as such, socially objecvtivated, and established in sign systems, above all the mother tongue” (Schütz and Luckmann 1974: 94). Culture can, therefore, be understood as a coordinated composition of many different subjective Lebenswelten, which in turn depend on historically evolved and agreed (or sedimented) knowledge in the different communities of discourse. Thus, the coordinated cultural knowledge, as construed and accumulated by a particular community, cannot be pinned down to the individual member, but is distributed throughout the community: it is shared and organized. This organization of cultural knowledge and social habitus implies that, Cultures are not simply collections of people sharing a common language and historical tradition. They are composed of institutions that specify more concretely what roles people play and what status and respect these are accorded – though culture at large expresses its way of life through institutions as well. Cultures can (. . . ) be conceived as elaborate exchange systems, with media of exchange as varied as respect, goods, loyalty, and services. (Bruner 1996: 29)

It is important to remember that these institutions and exchange systems are fundamentally dependent on human interaction. As Kronenfeld (2002) suggests, “culture has no existence outside of our individual representations of it, and since these representations are variable, there exists no single place where the whole of any culture is stored or represented. Thus, culture is necessarily and intrinsically a distributed system” (Kronenfeld 2002: 430). The central proposition is that culture exists only “in” human beings and, more importantly, in the intersubjective spaces between people where cultural elements are constantly constructed, deconstructed, reconstructed, and co-constructed in interactive processes. These culture-producing and -maintaining interactive processes construct, among other configurations, notions of “reality” and “truth” that are intersubjectively negotiated and, as long as they remain fundamentally agreed upon by the members of a cultural community, serve as the underlying cultural concepts of these and related notions, not only for the individual members, but also for the cultural and speech community at large. Therefore, cultures cannot simply be reduced to a collective of people sharing a common language and historically evolved traditions. Rather, cultures, through their intersubjective negotiation of shared knowledge, specify what roles people play and what status these roles are accorded (cf. Chapter 6). Cultures in this sense consist of many life-worlds and communities of Discourse (cf. Section 4.5), that is, people who share assumptions about what is appropriate for discussion and about how the validity of a particular claim might

214 | 7 The complexities of culture be demonstrated. Since the members of a linguistic and cultural community act in socio-historically pre-interpreted relationships of seemingly “objective” social and subjective worlds, they cannot transcend these boundaries and step onto completely unmapped territory. However, based on their accumulated knowledge and their potential for construction, they are able to understand and empathize through the use of other cultural constructs and social forms of life which are, to an extent, similar to their own. Meaningful interaction with aliens from another planet, therefore, would be impossible if they use sign systems and values incompatible to human systems; however, meaningful interaction with people from other cultures is basically always possible, considering common human experiences, such as embodiment, which we all share, that form the basis for all of our symbolic systems. The implications of these reflections for second language learning and teaching are obvious, in that mental and affective bridges have to be built between specific underlying patterns of interpretation of both (or more) cultures (and their life-worlds) involved. Relevant aspects of shared cultural knowledge of the L2 language community, including tacit assumptions for successful communication, have to be symbolically mediated through evolving third spaces which are located between the cultures, thus providing access to the Other (cf. Chapter 8). No society exists without a culture, which is a reflection of human needs to fulfill certain biological, social, and psychological aspirations; therefore one can assume fundamental similarities in cultural constructs that could provide for a basic understanding of the cultural other, albeit not for all aspects of his or her life.

7.2 Reading culture as text Culture, as we have seen, is a very dynamic, multi-layered, and elusive concept which is very difficult to define. However, for the purpose of L2 teaching and learning, culture has to be considered because of its intimate relation to language. An interesting way of understanding culture is provided by semiotics, structuralism, and post-structuralism which consider cultural patterns and products to be a kind of text that can be read or interpreted just like the text of a novel, poem, or drama. The person analyzing culture, for example, the ethnographer, is at the same time the author and the reader of texts; he or she tries to decipher the original cultural patterns, or the text, of a cultural community, and writes down his or her observations and analyses, thus composing a new text. This text then constitutes a written meta-text on the original cultural text. Cultural products and patterns in a textual sense are not just written documents, but contain all kinds of manifestations, whether visual, auditory, kinesic,

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or even olfactory (e.g., the smell of food), or tactile (for example, an artifact that is tangible). A contextual “reading” of these cultural “texts” can lead to a process of uncovering deeper levels of cultural meaning or other patterns of symbolic networks of a given culture which are usually hidden to the members of a cultural community. Sigmund Freud, for example, read culture as a means of managing and deploying to useful ends the aggression inherent in human sexuality. One of the most famous examples of constructing a cultural meta-text is Clifford Geertz’s (1973) “Deep Play: Notes on a Balinese Cockfight.” Here, Geertz tries to “read,” and then produce, a “thick description” of the deeply ingrained cultural patterns of Balinese society by describing and interpreting cockfights in their social context and with regard to their complex and multi-faceted relevance to Balinese culture. Geertz understands culture as a web of significance which has been spun by humans in a historical dimension and in which they are now suspended (cf. Section 7.1). Therefore, analysis of culture cannot be provided by “an experimental science in search of law but [by] an interpretative one in search of meaning” (Geertz 1973: 5). Thus, culture is not conceptualized as an abstractly ordered and cognitively decipherable system of hidden patterns; instead, “its logic (. . . ) derives rather from the logic of the organization of action, from people operating within certain institutional orders, interpreting their situations in order to act coherently with them” (Ortner 1984: 130). From this perspective, the sociocultural “reality” does not refer to underlying cultural patterns or systems in the sense of the structural approach, but refers to a symbolic system of meaning which undergirds human action in one’s life-world and cultural community. This approach is particularly relevant to the analysis of other cultures where an empathetic understanding of the subject and his or her actions is not easily achievable, as the hermeneutic access to the other’s subjective Lebenswelt (and all its multi-faceted contexts of social action) can only be gained with great difficulty, due to its complexity which is rooted in the other societal structures and cultural patterns. One of the guiding questions that Geertz (1983: 56) asks, with reference to German hermeneutics, is “What happens to verstehen when einfühlen disappears?” Verstehen refers here to rationally comprehending the other cultural system, and einfühlen refers to empathizing with its subjective behavior, based on sociocultural norms. The answer to this question for him is that a different, more objectifiable approach to accessing cultural meanings must be developed, one that uses all the signs and symbols which have been created and maintained by a particular culture. This approach is exactly that of viewing culture as text.⁷

7 Bachmann-Medick (2006: 72) points out that the metaphor of text does not imply that text and culture have to be equated; rather, it refers to the challenge of analyzing culture in respect of

216 | 7 The complexities of culture According to this approach, social actions are constantly being translated into cultural signs to which meaning can be ascribed. If this process of ascribing meaning reaches a degree of stability beyond subjectivity, and when the meaning of an action can be separated from the action as an event, then cultural meanings can be seen as a supra-individual and decipherable text. Thus, the social activities of a society, once they have reached a certain degree of agreement and stability within the cultural community, constitute a text which has been created, or written, and is continuously being written, by the members of that particular society or community. This, in turn, facilitates a reading of the cultural text. The task of the anthropologist as the reader of a cultural text is twofold: firstly, he or she reads the cultural text because, “The culture of a people is an ensemble of texts, themselves ensembles, which the anthropologist strains to read over the shoulders of those to whom they properly belong” (Geertz 1973: 452). The activity of reading “over the shoulders” of the cultural subjects refers to the notion of einfühlen, or empathizing, with the subjects in terms of their motivations, intentions, and objectives for action. Secondly, the anthropologist as ethnographer inscribes these readings upon his or her own texts, producing a textualization of previously read activities and interactions. The result is another text, a meta-text, created by the anthropologist herself or himself; this text operates at a different level from the first level of social activities within sociocultural structures and patterns, as it tries to translate these for an audience (in the anthropologist’s first culture) to which the activities of the observed society may be unfamiliar. Thus, the ethnographer becomes a translator (and commentator) of institutionalized activities from one socioculture to another. Like every good translator, the anthropologist must have a comprehensive knowledge of the customs, conceptualizations, schemata, and the language of the other people (and, of course, of his or her own socioculture) in order to arrive at a true and valid translation in the resultant meta-text (which he or she typically presents as a monograph) (cf. Section 8.3). However, in acting as a cultural translator, the anthropologist runs the risk of misunderstanding and misrepresenting the ascribed texts. This risk is even greater if the translator either does not know the language of the other cultural community to a very high degree of competence (so that he or she can understand sarcasm, irony, insinuations, and other subtexts), or has not lived with the observed people for a sufficient time so that he or she is intimately familiar with even finer strands of meaning in social action and cultural patterns. There is the very real danger that, as Crapanzano (1986: 74) points out: “There is only the construc-

its “readability” on many levels, which in turn can lead to the development of approaches for analyzing the plurality of intracultural complexities and subsets of cultures.

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ted understanding of the constructed native’s constructed point of view.” This is even more so the case, as the anthropologist ascribes utterances, opinions, attitudes, and sentiments not necessarily to the person who actually has expressed them; rather, there is the tendency to ascribe them wholesale to the community in question. Thus, the voice of the Other is usually disembodied and reconstructed in a scenario created by the author for the purpose of meeting the demands of the meta-text and its assumed audience; at best only short quotations are presented, where the individual in his or her role of the authentic voice of a particular part of the original cultural text is recognized, mainly for reasons of creating an aura of authenticity in the meta-text. This scenario of constructing patterns, structures, and meanings, which are rarely ascribed to authentic voices from within the cultural community, can raise serious questions as to the validity of the anthropologically authored cultural meta-text. The lack of familiarity with the other’s Lebenswelt from an insider’s perspective and a lack of really competent knowledge of the foreign language would render an anthropological project of meta-text composition on the basis of a cultural text almost meaningless. However, in recent times there have been an increasing number of authors who have personal roots in the original cultural text and have been educated in a metropolitan context. Therefore, the translator is himself or herself a cultural hybrid, operating in a third space between cultures. Pratt uses the term “autoethnography” to characterize this situation, referring to “instances in which colonized subjects undertake to represent themselves in ways that engage with the colonizer’s own terms. If ethnographic texts are means by which Europeans represent to themselves their (usually subjugated) others, authoethnographic texts are those the others construct in response to or in dialogue with those metropolitan representations” (Pratt 1992: 7). These hybrid authors have profound linguistic and cultural competence in both cultural communities, marginal and metropolitan, and therefore are in a prime position to act as intercultural translators and mediators who can offer deep readings of the analyzed cultural text in a version of a meta-text which is adequately translated into the metropolitan language and which can also present critical perspectives on the metropolitan culture. In an attempt to stabilize the meaning of culturally established signs, structuralism takes the basic notion of semiotics, that is, the constitution of meaning via the binary opposition of signs, and transfers it to the constitution of meaning in “reading” cultural patterns of a given society. This assumption is based on Saussure’s linguistic theory, namely that a certain kind of conventional knowledge, which functions as tacit knowledge for constructing meaning for a text, can be determined through the pattern of relationships of signs which, in turn, can be discovered by analytical procedures carried out by structuralists. Saussure

218 | 7 The complexities of culture assumes that there is no given definite meaning of any sign; the meaning of a sign is established by its contradiction to other signs: “In a language, as in every other semiological system, what distinguishes a sign is what constitutes it” (Saussure 1974: 121). Cultural structuralism takes this Saussurian notion and transfers it from the sphere of linguistics to cultural analysis. One of the most prominent proponents of this approach to analyzing cultures is the French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss who assumes that all cultures can be read as sign systems that reflect cognitive predispositions to categorize the social world in terms of binary oppositions (for example, male/female, public/private, cooked/raw) (cf. Lévi-Strauss 1963; 1964; 1974). By analyzing cultures as sign systems, structuralists try to reveal the unconscious logic, or the “grammar,” of a cultural system. According to Lévi-Strauss, human minds are universally the same, but cultures are different expressions of basic abstract logical properties of thinking; these are common to all humans, but adapted to specific environmental conditions. Consequently, he tries to find universal categories of human thought in historically unrelated cultures by analyzing them as sign systems and applying structuralist principles. Lévi-Strauss considers the anthropologist’s reading of (frequently deficient) cultural texts to be that of a bricoleur who creates improvised structures by appropriating pre-existing materials which he or she comes across in the culture under investigation (Lévi-Strauss 1974: 16–33; 35–6). On this basis, Lévi-Strauss interprets myth and custom, not so much as the distinct product of a particular culture, but as different expressions of mental structures and images universally innate to human beings. Like semiotics, structuralism (and post-structuralism) proposes that neither the individual nor the social community assume a central role in the analysis of culture. Rather, it is the “text,” the “grammar,” or “language” of a culture, that has to come into focus because it provides the really meaningful basis of and context for all action and interaction. Therefore, according to structuralism, the cultural form of social phenomena has to be analyzed in order to uncover the structures behind individual action, for instance, in the context of myths, death rituals, or rules of marriage. Structures are seen as transforming, since they are structuring as well as structured. They are also seen as self-regulating, as they maintain themselves autonomously against external disturbances. Cultural structuralism is interested neither in the diachronic development of the composition of parts of the cultural text nor in the socio-performative aspects of culture. Rather, it tends to be synchronic in its analyses, focusing on how the different parts of a given text fit together at a specific point in time. This approach involves identifying the relationships among the different components of the cultural text and discovering, through this parsing, an abstract system, which is then referred to as the structure. Cultural signs, just like linguistic signs in Saussure’s structuralist theory of

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language as a system, are understood to be arbitrary, and only become carriers of meaning by their opposition to, or distinction from, other signs. These symbolic worlds develop a logic of their own which is typically neither rationally nor consciously known by the subject of a culture. Hence, the subject is understood to be de-centered, torn apart by a myriad of conceptualizations and constructs which he or she has internalized. Whereas the interpretive approach assumes that the (individual and collective) author and reader of texts is at the center of the construction of meaning, structuralism assumes that readers and authors of text are determined by the meanings (in terms of form and content) of the cultural text. In this view, people are taken not to be creative, accountable subjects of their actions, but as the “tools,” or pawns, in language games and cultural texts. Rather than being autonomous subjects, they are understood to be objects of language and culture since they have been shaped to the core by linguistic conceptualizations and cultural patterns. Post-structuralism takes a slightly different approach to the analysis of culture. The term refers to a broad school of critique which emerged in response to French structuralism in the 1960s.⁸ Like the structuralists before them, poststructuralists treat all cultural phenomena as systems of signification, the meaning of which is derived from the interrelations of their parts, rather than from a relation to an independent “reality.” However, poststructuralists consider the scientific method of meticulous parsing, as applied by structuralists, as too rigid a system to facilitate the analysis of the very complex and ever-changing cultural systems of meaning. They reject the notion of a coherent single or stable meaning in a given text; instead, they put much more emphasis on the particular contexts of the processes of meaning-making within a culture to the extent that they doubt, in principle, the possibility of gaining coherent and meaningful insights and knowledge by the study of cultural form. There are always several possible ways of reading a text, never just one correct method. For example, the meaning of a flag is not universally the same; whereas, for instance, the Union Jack signifies for British people the national symbol for patriotism and shared history, in Ireland the same flag is culturally loaded by memories of sometimes violent and bloody oppression by the British colonizer; it is seen by some as a symbol of oppression and injustice and therefore sometimes referred to as “the butcher’s apron.” The same instability is true of structures; whereas structuralists focus on textual structures, poststructuralists argue against the idea of a structure for a given text, pointing out that any such structure is collapsible. Jacques Derrida (1974),

8 It is associated with the names of, among others, Derrida, Lacan, Deleuze, the later Barthes, Foucault, Kristeva, and Baudrillard.

220 | 7 The complexities of culture one of the most influential theorists of post-structuralism, has argued that the texts that constitute culture can never be pinned down semantically because signs refer only to other signs in a never-ending process of signification. Therefore, any definite meaning and knowledge evades the cultural analyst: it is constantly deferred. Furthermore, there is always partiality and subjectivity at play in understanding cultures; culture consists of a myriad of multiple realities, as construed by different subjects and Discourses, which can never be understood in their entirety, be it by the professional external “reader” or by the (inter-)actants within cultural texts. Julia Kristeva (1986) has expanded the concept of intertextuality, developed by Barthes (1977) and Derrida (1974), to grasp the multiple realities existing within a culture, seen as text. Kristeva refers to texts in terms of two axes: a horizontal axis connecting the author and reader of a text, and a vertical axis, which connects the text to other texts (Kristeva 1980: 69); this idea was informed by Bakhtin’s concept of heteroglossia (cf. Section 4.1). In the post-structural conception of intertextuality, human agency is downplayed, because authors and readers are de-centered, and the intertext is portrayed as operating independently of readers and writers, making its own connections. The status of authorship is conceptualized in a way that makes the efforts of the autonomous author as the sole originator of his or her text problematic; the author is seen more as the orchestrator, or bricoleur (LéviStrauss) of texts and elements of texts that have already been created. The author blends several texts together into a complex “tissue of quotations” which then becomes his or her text, as Roland Barthes explains: “A text is (. . . ) a multidimensional space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash. The text is a tissue of quotations (. . . ). The writer can only imitate a gesture that is always anterior, never original. His only power is to mix writings, to counter the ones with the others, in such a way as never to rest on any one of them” (Barthes 1977: 146). Based on Bakhtin’s concept of heteroglossia and Barthes’ “tissue of quotations,” it is argued that any text can be analyzed in terms of the other texts that it has absorbed and transformed. In this conception, a signifier refers to what seems to be signified but the latter turns out instead to be itself a signifier because it points to another, and so on. Instead of a final signified tied to something in the “real world,” there is an infinite regression in language itself. Structuralists and poststructuralists both make the assumption that recurring patterns of discourse are tied to culturally and socially distributed knowledge of Discourse, and they make the assumption that something may be learned about that cultural and social knowledge through analyzing the cultural texts of that speech community as its constituent units, and the relations among them. It is important, however, to remember that culture does not consist of such texts but that it reveals itself within texts; it is always more than the text.

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In addition, and as aforementioned in the context of the intercultural translator, there is a heavy emphasis on the semiotician who tries to uncover the layers of texts and meanings inherent in a single text. Although presented as purely objective and scientific accounts, their analyses are sometimes rather subjective interpretations, especially if the semiotic analysis is impressionistic, unsystematic, or too abstract and irrelevant. The assumption that categories such as membership of a social group or nation are not facts of an objective reality, as semioticians frequently imply, is wrong, because these categories are already part of cultural schemata of construal which we apply to interpret our world as a sociocultural fabric of significance; they are themselves part of cultural knowledge, and they cannot be understood as independent of this knowledge. This means that the focus of semiotic analysis must shift from describing cultural texts to the provision of empirical evidence which is used for particular interpretations and selfreflection in the sense that the semiotician is aware of the fact that, like the texts he or she is analyzing, he or she is operating in a medium which cannot be neutral. For the purpose of learning a second language in its cultural context this implies that, although the textual approach to culture can contribute to revealing its structure and patterns, the agency of people as carriers of culture cannot be neglected. This is particularly true of the L2 learners who consciously, actively, and creatively construe meaning from the basis of embodied experience as members of a different cultural community. Culture is neither static nor neatly definable; therefore it has relevance for L2 learning only when one is conscious of the perspectivity and selectivity of notions of culture presented and discovered in the L2 classroom. Access to understanding the Other can only be achieved from carrying out activities co-operatively in the other language and culture, with all its implications for experientially-based learning in pragmatic and Discursive contexts.

7.3 Culture and social practice The structuralist and poststructuralist conceptions of culture as text or symbolic code place prominence on the autonomous structures of cultural texts, codes, and intertexts, and suppress the role of the authors of these texts, i.e., the subject and his or her social, intersubjective, and societal (inter-)actions. The whole sphere of cultural pragmatics is neglected in their analyses, i.e., the social and societal practices that are conducted with a certain degree of consistency and competence by individuals and groups of people within a cultural collective, based on tacit cultural knowledge and shared presuppositions. In order to understand the motivations and practices of what people are doing in a given social and cultural context, it is not sufficient to focus on isolating the

222 | 7 The complexities of culture structures of a society and the underlying patterns of culture (although, of course, they also have to be taken into consideration for analyzing the whole picture) and examine them in abstract categories of binary oppositions and propositional knowledge. These structures and patterns have been, and are, formed mainly as a result of social activity in the sense that experiences of contingency in social life require the construction of cultural meaning. Thereby they maintain the cultural networks of knowledge in a process of providing answers or explanations to these social (and subjective) experiences. Thus, society can be understood as “a multi-layered network of interconnected activity systems, and less as a pyramid of rigid structures dependent on a single center of power” (Engeström 2005: 36; cf. Section 5.3). At the core of social activity is the subject and his or her socioculturally developed faculties of construction which have been developed by object-centered mediation. Recent studies in cognitive linguistics emphasize the notion of the embodied mind, taking into consideration that our human embodiment shapes to a large extent both what we are and how we think: “All dimensions of human thought emerge from increasing levels of complexity in organismenvironment interactions, and all of these interactions require and are grounded in our bodies” (Mark Johnson, cited in Oliveira and Bittencourt 2008: 22). In this context, the notion of body is not restrained to the fleshy boundary of the skin and to the central nervous system, but it “extends out into its environment, so that the organism and environment are not independent, but rather interdependent aspects of the basic flow of bodily experience” (Mark Johnson, cited in Oliveira and Bittencourt 2008: 23). We only can make sense through interaction with others, based on our bodily experience. The structuralist and poststructuralist approaches therefore have to be complemented by an analysis of the ways and manners in which cultural knowledge influences social and subjective practices of action, and how embodied subjective and social practices of activity form and maintain cultural knowledge. This is even more important because of the polyphonic nature of cultural “realities” which are tied to social activity in a mutually active manner. Cultural phenomena are not just abstract constructs, charged with symbolically mediated meaning. They are fundamentally embedded in historically specific and socially structured contexts and processes. Within, and as a product of, these processes, symbolic forms are created, transmitted, modified, and received (cf. Thompson 1990: 135). Hence, cultural texts are generated in a myriad of social practices through routinely initiated and executed activities and actions on the basis of certain patterns. These, in turn, have been institutionalized by social action. Within a given geographical area, people who interact with one another over time form social bonds that help to stabilize their interactions and patterns of behavior. These relatively stable patterns and structures become the basis for making predictions and forming expectations

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about others. By doing things together frequently and regularly, common customs develop that solidify and turn into collective patterns and styles of action. Subsequently, they structure social practice in ways that can make certain relations of action and reaction socially predictable and expectable. Thus, the structures of social action can have a guiding and motivating influence on the activities of the individual in the sense that much of his or her social activities are facilitated by being part of certain social practices, for example, Discourses, or genres. These social structures can only have an effect on subjective activity, if the individual actively participates in social interaction and at the same time appropriates the given regulative social framework and inherent forms of cultural knowledge (cf. Section 7.4). These routinely executed patterns of action provide a stabilizing framework for social practice which, from a subjective point of view, opens up a thoroughly familiar field for action, the life-world. At the same time, they constitute the expressions of collective knowledge of meanings and actions. This knowledge is tacit because it is presupposed in all understandings and actions of members of a cultural community; therefore, it cannot be equated with verbalizable insights of the (inter-)actants into the mechanisms of their social world. If certain procedures of social practice are repeated over and over again in a fairly similar manner in different places at different times within a cultural community, then there must exist certain intersubjective accounts of knowledge and meaning that serve as a basis for the (re-)creation of these actions. Bourdieu (1977), for example, suggests that these kinds of social practice, relating to social fields (e.g., economic, religious, political, cultural, etc.), are ontologically more relevant than the subjectively intended actions of individuals. He developed the notion of habitus which refers to the social framework wherein and whereby the habitual aspects of everyday social thought and action operate.⁹ Bourdieu defines the habitus as: systems of durable, transposable dispositions, structured structures predisposed to function as structuring structures, that is, as the principle of generation and structuration of practices and representations which can be objectively “regulated” and “regular” without in any way being the product of obedience to rules, objectively adapted to their goal without presupposing the conscious aiming at ends or an express mastery of the operations necessary to attain them and, being all that, collectively orchestrated without being the product of the orchestrating action of an conductor. (Bourdieu 1977: 72; emphasis in the original)

9 Bourdieu chose the Latin term habitus in order to differentiate it from the term habit. Habitus is a much more complex notion than habit. Habitus is an important structuring element of the Lebenswelt.

224 | 7 The complexities of culture The habitus is thus simultaneously social and subjective; Bourdieu even suggests that these socially mediated dispositions literally mold the body and become second nature to the person; they are durable, structured, generative, and transposable. They supply the subject with a practical and durable sense of how to act in society; once acquired by an individual through explicit and implicit learning, but also through direct experience and imitation, they are ingrained into the body, “embodied and turned into a second nature” (Bourdieu 1990: 63). The habitus, as an embodied structure of society, reproduces the conditions of its own genesis via social practice. This process, as well as the guiding structural influence of the habitus on the actions, perceptions, and constructs of the individual and the society, is tacit: “Because habitus is, it never asks why, for it does not know otherwise. The language of familiarity presumes habitus, and therefore ignores it” (Harman 1988: 110). Habitus is the product of the sedimentation of attitudes, beliefs, and ways of doing things that have been subjectively internalized during the process of socialization and reinforced over time. Habitus is “the source of cognition without consciousness, intentionality without intentions, and a practical mastery of the world’s regularities which allows to anticipate the future without even needing to posit it” (Bourdieu 1990: 12). This implies that habitus allows the regularities of the social world to be mastered and predicted, without consciously having to construe the social workings of the environment as such. This signifies neither total ignorance on the part of the protagonists nor complete awareness of what guides their practical actions. However, Bourdieu’s concept of habitus appears to be too stable when he says that it tells people what to do in a certain situation (cf. Bourdieu 1998: 42). It does not take into account the fact that in dynamic and differentiated postmodern societies, the subject is always involved in manifold D/discourses of social practice that continuously complement and shift his or her repertoire of social and cultural knowledge and habits. Similarities in construction, facilitated by tacit cultural knowledge and habitual social action, generate, both on subjective and social levels, a common sense of social activity and interaction. This is understood as a communicatively constituted social and cultural repertoire of everyday processes of cognitive and communicative orientation of action (cf. Feilke 1994: 67, 363). Based on this common sense, people can know, act, interact, and construct the “realities” of the world in which they are involved and are active participants in the socially constructed and maintained web of significance in which they are suspended. Construction in this sense happens; it is an event. Common sense does not usually ask for the reasons of certain instances of social behavior because it is based on distributed social conventions. Feilke (1994: 200) demonstrates this phenomenon with the example of the social act of thanking for receiving a present at a birthday celebration; it is socially completely irrelevant

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why one is expressing thanks to the donor, but it is of social relevance that one thanks him or her. However, the deeper basis for this kind of regular practice of action and common sense in a society is provided by the implicit cultural knowledge as knowledge shared by the members of a community (cf. Section 7.1). Cultural knowledge is produced and maintained by social actions, because the meaning of particular acts, objects, events, and experiences are created socially. If these particular items are repetitive and regular on a larger scale, social knowledge is transformed into cultural knowledge, not in a one-dimensional process, but in a complex dialectical process, wherein social and cultural knowledge interpenetrate and mutually enrich one another. Socially generated cultural schemata of meaning, then, provide the framework for smooth interpretations and ascriptions of meaning for actions, theoretical figurations, understandings, and interactions. As such, they gain entry into the social world of subjects, groups of people, and societies where they take effect as either implicit facilitators or prohibitors of action, depending on which forms of usage are favored or, on the other hand, excluded as unsuitable for certain instances. According to Parekh (2006: 146), “society refers to a group of human beings and the structure of their relations, culture to the content and the organizing and legitimizing principles of these relations.” Viewed in this way, culture is not only a specific repertoire of knowledge that is recorded and stored in many forms (e.g., texts, symbols, rituals, codes, artifacts, schemata of interpretations, and technologies) and then passed on within and between social and societal communities and generations in a selective manner, as structuralist and poststructuralist approaches suggest. Culture also consists of repertoires of practical social knowledge and interpretative abilities. Only through these applicative repertoires can cultural knowledge take effect in social practice, in that they are made explicit and concrete in certain socially practiced and embodied abilities and skills which allow people to interact smoothly in a predictable and comprehensible manner with other people, things, and events. In contrast to the definition of culture as a text which depicts culture as recorded reservoirs of declarative knowledge, the social aspect of culture concerns procedural knowledge in the sense of cultural abilities that supplies itself with selected skills and customs. Consequently, culture influences social structure, just as social structure influences culture. This can be seen as the double character of culture which combines and unites the two aspects of “cultural system” and “social practice” in a complex dialectical relationship (cf. Hörning 2004: 146). In the perspective of social practice, then, culture is not so much an abstract network of schemata for interpretation, separated from its socio-practical origins, that constitutes something like an autonomous text. Culture, in this view, is a network of implicit knowledge that tacitly undergirds and structures intersubjective

226 | 7 The complexities of culture social practice; the former cannot be separated from the latter, as the tacit patterns of culture have to be performed in a social practice to become evident in its effect on individuals as well as on groups of people (from small groups up to whole societies). It would make sense to introduce aspects of culture as elements of social practice into the L2 classroom so as to enable learners to find ways of constructing certain dimensions of the other socioculture from the angle of habit formation on social and cultural levels.

7.4 Culture, social practice, and the subject The mental capacities of the individual are socially constituted, hence the subject is a thoroughly social being; cultural patterns are symbolic, hence the subject is also an animus symbolicum (cf. Section 7.1). The subject has appropriated linguistic concepts, cultural patterns, and social norms to a point that he or she is completely dependent on them for any rational actions, behaviors, or thoughts. However, this is not true in the deterministic sense that structuralism would have us believe. The subject does not internalize the cultural patterns, social conventions, and norms in an identical fashion to others. Social structures and cultural patterns can only have a shaping effect on the subject by him or her actively participating in social interaction, not by internalizing them in an atomistic and isolated manner. During the process of active participation in the social (and, through it, in the cultural) sphere, the subject appropriates in ongoing and recurrent processes the given regulative social framework and cultural knowledge which suits his or her particular situation in certain circumstances. At the same time, by acting in society, he or she contributes to the process of continuing and reproducing the sociocultural knowledge, values, and norms, as Sharifan (2008) explains: On the one hand, the individual is the locus of cultural cognition and can have an initial causal role in its development, dissemination and reinforcement. On the other hand, an individual’s performance can be influenced or determined to a varying degree by the cultural cognition that characterizes the cultural group. Thus, the role of individuals in a cultural group may be described in terms of a circular pattern of cause and effect. (Sharifan 2008: 116).

Rogoff (1995: 142) combines these notions of participation and appropriation in the concept of “participatory appropriation” which refers to how individuals change through their own subjective adjustments and understandings of sociocultural activity:

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Participatory appropriation refers to how individuals change through their involvement in one or another activity, in the process of becoming prepared for subsequent involvement in related activities. With guided participation as the interpersonal process through which people are involved in sociocultural activity, participatory appropriation is the personal process by which, through engagement in an activity, individuals change and handle a later situation in ways prepared by their own participation in the previous situation. This is a process of becoming, rather than acquisition. (Rogoff 1995: 142)

However, this is a “process of becoming” not only for the subject, but also for the social norms, values, and beliefs which cannot exist without human participation, as Wittgenstein (1953: § 432) has shown (cf. Section 5.1)¹⁰. This means that culture depends on ongoing human agency because subjective and collective activities form the basis for the production of subjective and collective normative frames and schemata; only these collective and intersubjective actions lead to cultural products and cultural change: “Being an action field, culture offers possibilities of, but by the same token stipulates conditions for, action; it circumscribes goals which can be reached by certain means, but establishes limits, too, for correct, possible and also deviant action. (. . . ) As an action field, culture not only induces and controls action, but is as much a process as a structure” (Boesch 1991: 29). An example of culture in social action is provided by Kumaravadivelu (2008: 48–50), where the culturally induced deference of the co-pilot of a Korean passenger airplane to the captain’s authority prevents him from making the captain aware of the fact that he had forgotten to put the plane on autopilot for landing in Guam in August 1997, although the co-pilot was aware of the imminent danger. The plane subsequently crashed, killing 228 of the 254 people aboard. Here, the action field of the dominant Korean culture in which absolute deference to people in authority is inscribed, led the co-pilot to adhere to the culturally induced and expected behavior at the expense of his and 227 other lives. Culture, as an action field, is a historically developed medium of human activity. This conception of culture emphasizes the active part of the subject in the context of socioculturally situated acting and interacting. He or she is not a passive pawn in the game of cultural patterns and social norms, beliefs, and values, but plays an active part, not only in conducting his or her own life, but also in continuously negotiating and thereby reconstructing social structures and cultural

10 Rogoff’s concept of “participatory appropriation” is not identical with Vygotsky’s concept of “internalization” as it “reduces development to participation and says nothing theoretically relevant about the uniquely human ability to voluntarily organize and control our biologically endowed mental capacities through the internalization of the concepts, artifacts, and activities of human culture” (Lantolf and Thorne 2006: 166).

228 | 7 The complexities of culture patterns in a minor, yet important, manner. Thus, social structure is conceived as providing fluid patterns of action and positioning, and therefore can be seen as immanent rather than real. Culture, in turn, is conceived as being a constituent of actions, and hence an essential part of the thoughts, feelings, and activities that characterize meaningful human existence. Culture, society, and human subjects as agents are essentially interdependent and require each other’s interplay, directly and indirectly. Any action plays a part in the development of structures to which it relates, and, reciprocally, social structures and cultural patterns have no existence of their own beyond their occurrence in the activity that they structure. Culture, therefore, is a symbolic order that is inherent in social practice and individual action (cf. Straub 2004: 580). On the other hand, in order to explain a social or cultural phenomenon, one can, with some analytical effort, reduce it to the elementary individual actions and operation of which it is composed. In this context, activity theory (cf. Section 5.3) can be drawn upon because it expands culture from being a realm of more or less stable structures and processes to an individual and social activity organized in a specific socio-technological system. As Ratner (2001) points out, “psychological phenomena have a basis in concrete, practical social activity. They are formed as people participate in social activities, they embody features of this activity, and they normally reinforce this activity although they can initiate change in activity” (Ratner 2001: 76). From this perspective, the separation of individual and social activity from distributed schemata and concepts of culture does not make sense, because this view of culture does not take into consideration the dynamic, emergent character of concepts. Furthermore, this conception implies that psychological change can be accomplished simply by autonomously changing one’s concepts or perspectives. By contrast, the concept of culture as inherent in and structuring practical activity implies that intersubjective psychological change cannot be separated from social and societal change because both concepts and psychological phenomena are grounded in practical action. Therefore, “significant psychological change requires corresponding changes in the organization of social life” (Ratner 2001: 77), including the underlying cultural schemata. Agency is defined as a subjective concept, and the planning of actions is closely linked to control over actions (as well as over the physical environment). Consequently, an action is participatory to the structures to which it relates. At the same time, social structures could not exist beyond their occurrence in actions which they structure. An example of this relationship was presented in Section 5.3 on activity theory, where the complex activity of the hunt demands a break-down of the complex activity into several actions (e.g., beating, shooting, and retrieving). However, the subject has a modicum of personal agency; he or she is initiating action within the activity system and the person who to a large

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extent gives subjective meaning to what he or she does, even if the activity is structured by the overarching activity system and prescriptive social and cultural norms, including Discursive validations. Hence, people are both active participants and passive objects in social and cultural causation. They are exposed to certain contexts in a relational manner; therefore, they can also develop a reflexive distance to cultural schemata and Discourses. From this detached position, they can develop different forms and different degrees of relationships with social and cultural dynamics (for example, by invoking contextual meaning differently), according to subjective preferences, construals of situation, or interpretations of action. Thus, the potential for construction by people is not completely determined by linguistic, cultural, and social categories, but they are, to a certain extent, free to make their own choices (albeit within the scope of what is socioculturally on offer to them). It follows, then, that every individual occupies a specific dynamic space within his or her community and culture – as construed by himself or herself and by his or her peers (and this might vary) (cf. Chapter 6). This intracultural space is made up of the many threads of different D/discourses in which the individual participates; it is not stable, but is constantly changing on the basis of the continuously ongoing process of (inter-)action and construction. It also follows that this space is facilitated by and tied to a specific language and culture which provide the structure and the categories for construction that are not available in an exactly identical manner in any other language, culture, and community. Therefore, the individual finds himself or herself positioned in a personal space in-between many different D/discourses, concepts, and categories which are necessary for the construction of meaning, action, and identity. The glue that connects and holds people together in a cultural community is language, which is also the main medium for distributing cultural patterns and social structures. Concepts of self, Other, and world are basically constructed through communicative acts. By the use of language, ideas and practices can be passed on to others, even through time, space, and across cultures. This is true even for complex sociocultural normative concepts, such as habitus which can be described, thus generating an awareness of these processes in people for whom a particular habitus may be alien. However, the differences in the historically shaped modes of Discourses, activity, and comprehension between cultures make the cross-cultural communicative aspect difficult to enact in a meaningful way. Full participation in culturally shaped linguistic activities implies the implicit and explicit understanding of a set of existing cultural resources (values, interpretive patterns, modes of action, identity formation of people, norms, attitudes, and beliefs) and the ability to assess these for present and future activities. In contrast to cultural theories which treat the individual as an insignificant cipher in the

230 | 7 The complexities of culture complex cultural system, the subject must be seen as a central agent in the field of culture and society who is enabled and restrained simultaneously by cultural patterns (tacit cultural knowledge) and social norms, values, and beliefs. The implications here for L2 learning lie in the richness of experiential contexts that must be provided for the learners in the classroom, facilitating the discovery of some cultural patterns that inform the social framework of discourse. Rogoff’s (1995) notion of participatory appropriation can play a role in the structuring of these activities. The L2 learners can negotiate their subjective participation in the other social context and its underlying cultural patterns in explicit relationship to the comparable social situations and cultural patterns of their native society and culture. Through their engagement in the activity, the subjective stance changes. This facilitates learners to handle later situations in ways prepared by their previous participation in the current activities. This is a “process of becoming” (Rogoff 1995: 142), in that learners co-construct the other social situation and cultural patterns collectively, as well as their relation to the corresponding patterns of the native culture, but they internalize it subjectively. The process of becoming refers to the subjective changes in the potential of construction (in cognitive, emotional, and behavioral dimensions) with the perspective of changed future action.

8 The interplay of cultures: Constructs of interculture Constructs of interculture have been challenged by transculturalists and multiculturalists. While the former tend to see interculturality as a potentially racist construct because it allegedly contributes to the maintenance of cultural boundaries and therefore suppresses and segregates members of other cultures (cf. Welsch 1994: 152), the latter allege that interculturality tends to alienate people from their cultural roots and therefore contributes to their cultural confusion. Transculturality wants to overcome traditional boundaries and position itself above existing cultures, thereby overcoming racism and ethnocentrism. Transcultural individuals “are culturally footloose, owing loyalty to no single culture, floating freely between them, picking up beliefs, practices and lifestyles that engage their sympathies, and creating an eclectic way of life of their own” (Parekh 2006: 150). Such individuals can be detached from cultural systems of meanings and beliefs; they create instead their own original and creative lifestyle beyond the constraints of a culture. In order to illuminate this disinterest in cultures, Bredella (2012: 81) likens this position to that of transhistorical attitudes, which are not interested in history but in a place beyond history. Transculturality tends to level differences within and between cultures, ignore constellations of power and the cultural influences on subjects’ systems of beliefs and values, and naively assume the existence of a homogenous melting-pot culture where all cultural boundaries have been erased. Multiculturalism, on the other hand, recognizes the huge influence of cultural patterns for the subjective and collective construction of meaning, values, norms, and beliefs and therefore emphasizes the value of each and every culture in its own right. This is particularly relevant in multicultural societies which embrace all the inherent diverse cultures and recognize them in their own right in the spirit of egalitarianism and peaceful coexistence. In Parekh’s (2006: 13) view, multiculturalism “is not about minorities (. . . ) [but] about the proper terms of relationship between different cultural communities.” However, it is questionable whether the multicultural ideal of peacefully coexisting cultures which interrelate and influence one another without losing their distinct characters, is sustainable or even desirable. While every culture must be recognized in its specificities, cultural contact implies change for aspects and identities of cultures and its members. Whereas transculturality wants to overcome and annihilate all cultural boundaries, and multiculturality wants to maintain borders between cultures, interculturality proposes to engage in constructive dialogue between cultures, or more precisely, members of different cultures, thus establishing dynamic third spaces between the interactants. These emerging third spaces are not to

232 | 8 The interplay of cultures: Constructs of interculture be confused with the transcultural ideal of dissolution of boundaries; instead the interaction between cultures recognize and understand boundaries and intend to come to terms with these boundaries by focusing on the relation between the respective cultures and on the heteroglossia within these cultures (cf. Kramsch 1993: 12). Understanding the Other presupposes the existence of and recognition of boundaries. This is true for understanding the motives, actions, emotions, and utterances of the other person within a culture because there cannot be a notion of subjectivity without intersubjectivity; it is equally true for intercultural understanding because each of the cultures involved provides its members with different orientations in life and different frames of reference in terms of conceptualizations, prototypes, frames, genres, narratives, Discourses, and identities. We cannot understand cultural others on the basis of assumed universal principles, but we have to develop an empathic stance on the basis of our own, culturally induced feelings and knowledge of the other’s cultural background and ask ourselves how we would have acted in their place. Parekh underpins the relevance of boundaries in our lives: Boundaries structure our lives, give us a sense of rootedness and identity, and provide a point of reference. Even when we rebel against them, we know what we are rebelling against and why. Since they tend to become restrictive, we need to challenge and stretch them; but we cannot reject them altogether for we then have no fixed point of reference with which to define ourselves and to decide what difference to cultivate. (Parekh 2006: 150)

Interculturality does not reduce the individual to his or her collective or cultural identity (as was discussed in Section 6.5) and it does not essentialize cultures or cultural identities, as is alleged by transculturalists. It rather encourages (inter-) subjective reflection and understanding of the Other against (and including) the cultural backgrounds of the interactants. This dialogical process does not leave the original cultural viewpoints intact but facilitates the emergence of dynamic intercultural third spaces between the cultures concerned. However, the third place is not detached from the informing cultures; it does not exist in a social and cultural vacuum but embraces the similarities and differences in the sense that the subject negotiates (and constantly re-negotiates) his or her own momentary position between the cultural patterns available, according to his or her particular interests, motivations, beliefs, experiences, memories, and aspirations. Intercultural competence implies a normative transformation of self (cf. Mall 2003: 197, and Section 10.2) that overcomes claims of absolute truth and encourages the subject (and the community) to live with difference and constructively engage with the Other. The development of intercultural competence in this sense is one of the main objectives of second language learning, whereas concepts of trans- and multiculturality have no role to play in this context.

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Advanced L2 learning is inextricably connected with the subjective development of intercultural spaces on the part of the L2 learner because language is embedded in culture. Therefore, learning a L2 cannot be separated from the L2 cultural context so that both aspects must be considered for the L2 classroom. However, the emphasis in L2 learning has traditionally been on the grammar, syntax, and phonetics of the linguistic system, at least in the initial phases of L2 learning, while cultural elements have been assumed to be acquired automatically and somewhat incidentally to the learning process. This assumption was first challenged by the communicative approach of the 1970s and 1980s which emphasized the pragmatic context of communicative situations, and subsequently by the intercultural approach to L2 learning (since the 1990s) which places much greater emphasis on the subjective development of intercultural third places and on intercultural competence as a necessary precondition for competent L2 use in all kinds of situations relating to the L2 – and the L1 (cf. MLA Report 2007 and Chapter 1). The first language and its cultural context must be taken into consideration, because the subjective development of intercultural places in the course of L2 learning changes the potential for subjective constructions, including those of identity which is seen as a dynamic, multilayered, and constantly ongoing interactive process. This chapter will analyze notions of interculturality in the inherent processes of hybridization, transgression, translation, and blending of spaces. Whereas modernism promoted the concept of the individual and his or her experiences, postmodernism emphasizes the metaphor of creative spaces of enunciation which are located somewhere between people, D/discourses, cultures, identities, societies, and languages, all understood as dynamic and non-essentialist constructs. Since individuals (as the original core entity of construction) cannot, in their own right, construct meaning that transcends their own cognitive limitations, it is the interaction between people, but also, through them, between cultures, D/discourses, societies, and languages, that creates true spaces of enunciation. These generative third spaces of hybridity do not belong to any of the participants in interaction (who are themselves de-centered); they are spread out in spaces shared, to varying degrees, between the interactants, and are characterized by hybridity and continuously ongoing processes of negotiation, translation, and enunciation (cf. Chapter 4). In these highly dynamic spaces, subjects construct their own momentary positioning, or place; however, this subjective place is never durable, but constantly fluctuates and develops due to ongoing processes of construction. Hence, these subjective third places are not locatable (cf. Bhabha 1994: 37;

234 | 8 The interplay of cultures: Constructs of interculture Mall 1998: 57). However, they serve as dynamic bases for the construction of meaning, be it on subjective or collective levels.¹ Holistic and essentializing concepts, promoted by modernism, fall short of catching the dynamism and hybridity of these creative spaces located “inbetween” categories; they tend to operate with monolithic and essentializing categories which ignore the inherent heteroglossia and intertextual layers.² Thus, notions of hybrid and dynamic constructs in-between, the inter, seem to be more appropriate for analyzing and describing socially generated concepts of the symbolic world, for example, constructs of the individual, of identity, society, language, and culture, because they emphasize the mixed, fractured, and composed structure of these concepts which are constantly in flow and contested between interactants, some of whom are more powerful than others. Notions and processes of the hybrid inter-spaces, though originating from concrete interaction between two or more sources (e.g., people, cultures, societies, Discourses), are not usually reducible to monolithic societal, cultural, or individual psychological processes, since on the one hand they constitute something genuinely new, and on the other hand they are themselves already constituted by processes based on hybrid spaces “in-between;” to do so would be to engage in a form of sociological and cultural reductionism. Subjectivity, for example, cannot be seen as the emergence of a transcendental subject progressively revealing his or her self in an autonomous fashion. Rather, it must be defined as the emergence of a subjective dimension in the realm of intersubjectivity, based on social structures and cultural patterns that are to a certain (usually high) degree shared by the interactants. The individual is always more than the visible body and its ascribed identity; he or she is an embodied subject whose potential for agency, feeling, and construction is provided (and at the same time restrained) by the sociocultural stock of tacit and explicit knowledge available to him or her – and this stock of knowledge is constantly developing: “An embodied subject is more than a body and more than an individual entity: it is a somatic-psychic organism, constituted by embodied affect and emotions and inextricably enmeshed in a complex world of intersubjective relations” (Violi 2008: 73).

1 The notion of hybridity has also to be applied to the concept of hybridity itself, as Young (1995) points out: “There is no single, or correct, concept of hybridity: it changes as it repeats, but it also repeats as it changes” (Young 1995: 27). 2 Young (1995: 27) critically remarks that the “old essentializing categories of cultural identity [might] have been retrospectively constructed as more fixed than they were” in order to promote the theoretical concept of hybridity more convincingly.

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Without intersubjective exchanges, there would be no potential for developing language, culture, society, and mind; and since these configurations could not exist without constant interaction on many different levels, it is truly the hybrid inter that provides the many-faceted space for creating meanings. However, (inter-)subjectivity is not an abstract theoretical concept, but a dynamic and transient, yet real and actual psychic, emotional, mental, and behavioral state the embodied subject experiences and uses for subjective and intersubjective purposes, for example, trying to verbalize pain to the self (cf. Chapter 2), or bringing one’s self into interaction with other people. The intercultural third space provides the L2 user with additional symbolic resources to construct a unique, yet transient subjective position, not only between the dominant L1-mediated concepts, values, and traditions, but by adding the resources of another language and culture. The intracultural hybridity of the subject is now expanded into an interculturally blended space in which the subject takes up a succession of transient blended places.

8.1 Hybridity Hybridity is a concept that has gained particular relevance for the field of postcolonial studies. Originally, the term was used in the biological discourse of 19 th century Europe where it had negative connotations, as it referred to the biological mixing of two different species considered to be “pure,” resulting in a genuinely different third “hybrid” species, characterized by a mixing of the features of the two original species. When transferred to evolutional and cultural theories, the term became charged with racism, as it was used to discriminate against people of mixed race. Mikhail Bakhtin’s use of the term in his concept of heteroglossia and the carnevalesque contributed to the deconstruction of these negative connotations. Bakhtin, however, uses the term “hybridity” in a specific sense, relating to his own notion of heteroglossia inherent in language (cf. Section 4.1). He defines hybridity or, as he calls it, hybridization (emphasizing the active dimension of the concept), as follows: “What is a hybridization? It is a mixture of two social languages within the limits of a single utterance, an encounter, within the arena of an utterance, between two linguistic consciousnesses, separated from one another by an epoch, by social differentiation or by some other factor” (Bakhtin 1981: 358). Bakhtin refers here to the mixing of social languages within a single speech community in a historical dimension, rather than to a synchronic mixture of different languages and cultures. He emphasizes that inherent to every utterance are traces of different social voices and levels of meaning which can be

236 | 8 The interplay of cultures: Constructs of interculture employed consciously by the author of an utterance. But normally, the speaker or writer uses language in everyday interactions without being aware of the other voices he or she is using in the act of speaking or writing. Bakhtin labels the latter, subconscious, employment of multi-voicedness in utterances “organic hybridity” (Bakhtin 1981: 360). Although hybrid utterances are typically used unconsciously by speakers or writers, they still have, according to Bakhtin, crucial repercussions for the development of language and the creative potential inherent in language: “[U]nintentional, unconscious hybridization is one of the most important modes in the historical life and evolution of all languages. We may even say that language and languages change historically primarily by means of hybridization” (Bakhtin 1981: 358), because, “while it is true the mixture of linguistic world views in organic hybrids remains mute and opaque, such unconscious hybrids have been at the same time profoundly productive historically: they are pregnant with potential for new world views, with new ‘internal forms’ for perceiving the world in words” (Bakhtin 1981: 360). Thus, it is the hybrid form of language which drives change in cognition. In contrast to the subconscious organic hybridity, in which the mixture of voices merge and constitute new meanings or actions, consciously employed hybridity by ordinary language users (but more frequently by artists, especially novelists and poets, and L2 users who employ deliberate effort in the use of hybridization), is divisive, conflictual, and contradictory. “Intentional semantic hybrids are inevitably internally dialogic (as distinct from organic hybrids). Two points of view are not mixed, but set against each other dialogically” (Bakhtin 1981: 360). With the two notions of organic hybridity, tending toward the fusion of voices, and intentional hybridity, emphasizing conflictual elements of dialogue, Bakhtin applies the notion of hybridity to the concept of hybridity itself, which fuses voices while at the same time maintaining a degree of separation with the potential of one voice unmasking the other. In construing this theoretical figuration, Bakhtin deconstructs the concept of authoritative discourse which by definition must rely on a single voice; hybrid constructs, however, immediately undermine endeavors towards a single-voiced authority (cf. Young 1995: 22). The postcolonial theorist Homi K. Bhabha has taken up on the undermining influences of Bakhtin’s linguistic concept of intentional hybridity and transformed it “into an active moment of challenge and resistance against a dominant cultural power” (Young 1995: 23). Biological origin and ethnic characteristics are not relevant to cultural concepts; rather, the spatial metaphors of “place” and “displacement,” or even the “location of culture” (Bhabha 1994) take center stage. When cultures collide, for example, in colonialism, where the local culture is suppressed and dominated by the colonizing metropolitan culture, both cultures involved undergo subtle and sustained transformations by blending

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marginal spaces. Thus, the emphasis shifts from the center of cultural systems of meaning to their margins, to borderline zones and spaces “in-between” as the most relevant spheres where cultural production takes place. Consequently, Bhabha (1994) emphasizes the necessity, to think beyond the narratives of originary and initial subjectivities and to focus on those moments or processes that are produced in the articulation of cultural differences. These “in-between” spaces provide the terrain for elaborating strategies of selfhood – singular or communal – that initiate new signs of identity, and innovative sites of collaboration, and contestation, in the act of defining the idea of society itself. (Bhabha 1994: 1–2)

Bhabha thus turns the concept of hybridity against concepts of multiculturalism: whereas multiculturalism assumes a diversity of language games, cultures, and societies, which co-exist without intersections, hybridity emphasizes precisely the existence of such flexible creolizing intersections which are fraught with difference and meaning-potential.³ Bhabha (1994: 25; emphasis in the original) defines the “place of hybridity” as something “that is new, neither the one nor the other (. . . ), a space that can accept and regulate the differential structure of the moment of intervention without rushing to produce a unity of the social antagonism or contradiction.” In this formulation of the hybrid place as being able to “accept and regulate the differential structure of the moment of intervention,” Bhabha designs the hybrid place as having the potential to harmonize and integrate differential structures, patterns, and categories of meaning, although he adds that this harmonizing impetus may only be achieved in the long run. However, in this passage Bhabha may be too optimistic as to the harmonizing potential of the hybrid place, in particular with regard to intercultural encounters, because efforts of harmonizing all too often mean eliminating differences, and thus integrating the Other into the familiar structures and patterns of construction, thereby robbing it of its authentic voice. Hybridity in this sense contains the danger of deconstructing and dissolving traditional categories of substance that are central to the collective memory of speech communities and for their construction of cultural identity.⁴

3 With this notion of contact and intersection of cultures, the concept of hybridity comes very close to that of interculturality (cf. Chapter 9). 4 In order to counter such fears, Gayatri C. Spivak has developed the concept of “strategic essentialism.” In her subaltern studies, she brushes the concept of hybridity against its grain as she strategically implies a consciousness of the subaltern, similar to Karl Marx’s strategic usage of the construct of class consciousness (Klassenbewusstsein), in order to achieve a change of perspective from the underdog to the subaltern as the subject of history. “It is in this spirit that I read Subaltern Studies against its grain and suggest that its own subalternity in claiming a positive subjectposition for the subaltern might be reinscribed as a strategy for our times” (Spivak 1999: 217).

238 | 8 The interplay of cultures: Constructs of interculture However, what is evident from Bhabha’s passage above is that all cultural (self-)constructs and linguistically mediated (self-)concepts informing social and historical practices are ultimately negotiable, as they have their basis not in cultural diversity, but in cultural difference, which in turn has its origin in the ongoing and never-ending process of negotiation and re-inscription through the interpenetration of different, frequently contradictory, Discourses. Consequently, monolithic categories such as race, gender, and class have to be re-conceptualized, as they are no longer seen in the historical perspective of their constitution, but in their different discursive constructions which operate without hierarchies. In this context, hybridity does not simply mean the mixing of categories, but it is conceptualized as a situation of permanent translation of the different categories, their transgression and in-between space, as an “activity of displacement” (Rutherford 1990: 210). Some researchers see the concept of hybridity as being “too often accompanied by a certain wide-eyed romantic fascination with what otherwise might be seen simply as the diversification that necessarily comes with the day-to-day evolution of a range of cultural phenomena and activities. Thus, it may be best to frame discussions of social and cultural forms in the global age in terms of ever-increasing diversification rather than hybridity” (Block 2012: 59). However, Block’s suggestion to replace the concept of hybridity by that of diversification or glocalization⁵ implies the loss of important aspects of the concept of hybridity which is not captured by the proposed alternative concepts. For instance, hybridity has the potential to undermine the articulation of cultural differences from the margins and to deconstruct seemingly obvious and unambiguous categories like ethnicity, class, or gender.⁶ In this sense, the notion of hybridity has a subversive potential for which it is important from which position, or with what voice, one speaks and acts. This is particularly relevant for displaced persons, immigrants and subalterns, but also for artists, intellectuals, and advanced L2 learners who constantly move in a cosmopolitan manner between cultures and, ideally, turn their multifaceted “belonging” to different cultures and Discourses into creative endeavors of enunciation (cf. Chapter 10). Therefore, the hybrid status of the inter and the liminality of their positions are responsible for their creative and

5 The term glocalization captures, according to Block (2012: 59), “the idea that the global does not merely overwhelm or swallow the local; rather, syntheses emerge from contacts between the global and the local.” 6 However, in hybrid spaces, processes of re-homogenization can occur. But they are not simply extensions of pre-modern traditional identities; rather, they are themselves a postmodern product which operates with corresponding means, e.g., media technology, systematization of religious beliefs, etc. (cf. Reckwitz 2007: 210).

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innovative endeavors, as they have access to different systems of conceptualization, and are able to blend spaces between, or inter, cultures in a productive manner. Hybridization, in this sense, is neither an object nor a product of analysis, but a constantly ongoing process of articulation and construction. Instead of reducing differences to their origins, it is necessary to recognize them in their conditions of inequality and, from this basis, constantly renegotiate them anew. Clearly, differences are not taxonomic but interactive so that they have the potential to overcome the bipolar system of thinking and form genuinely new, yet highly dynamic, foundations for construction.

8.2 The third space The process of hybridization implies an exploration of a metaphorical third space, a threshold space, blended from blends of other spaces, located in a continuum between determinations of essence and identity. Hybridization can be seen as the activation of the third space as a method of interpretation that is directed against simplifying dichotomies and binary categorizations. This, however, does not imply a dissolution or melting away of two existing firm spaces, poles, or positions, as transculturalists would make us believe, but emphasizes the existence of already presupposed mixed and hybrid spaces as the starting point for analysis. Hybridity is the pre-existing third space of a simultaneity of the nonsimultaneous which forms the basis of the continuous emergence of further hybrid third spaces, as Bhabha suggests: “But for me the importance of hybridity is not to be able to trace two original moments from which the third emerges, rather hybridity to me is the ‘third space’ which enables other positions to emerge” (Bhabha in Rutherford 1990: 211). This implies that one and the same sign has to be constantly re-interpreted and reconfigured anew, from different subject positions and in different spaces so that novel knowledge can emerge. It also implies that boundaries are necessary, although these imply the kind of essentialism that postmodernism wishes to overcome. However, boundaries are constructed in the subjective mind (with the aid of cultural patterns and social structures); it is ultimately the subjects who “are all left with the responsibility for deciding where to try to draw what circles with whom, and around what” (Hollinger 1995: 172, cited in Kumaravadivelu 2008: 127). These boundaries and notions of essentialism are not durable and determinative, but fleeting and only momentarily valid for the individual, as they are constantly de- and reconstructed by subjective engagement in the process of blending spaces through intersubjective interaction. One of the most promising potentials of a hybrid concept of culture, identity, language, and learning which operates with the notion of third spaces lies in

240 | 8 The interplay of cultures: Constructs of interculture the field of intercultural relations. This is one of the principal terrains of hybrid spaces, contact zones, and intersections for negotiation of difference in order to elicit unknown and subconscious layers of culture, society, and identity which would otherwise remain tacit and unexplored; this is true not only with regard to the Other, but also to the initially dominant L1 cultural and subjective constructs. However, this presupposes that hybrid third spaces are not conceptualized purely as spaces of mixing two or more influences on a level playing field; there are differences in conceptual power in intercultural contacts. For example, at least in the initial stages of L2 learning, the L1-related concepts, values, and norms exert a much more powerful influence on thought and (inter-)action than those of the L2 or those of the emerging third spaces. This inequality, however, is one of the driving forces of the creative potential of third spaces: difference and conflict serve as genuine sources and processes of translation that have to be evaluated with respect to the constitution of a particular dynamic third space. These processes can be an important factor in the transposition of subjective, but also of social spaces. In processes of intersubjective communication, the two places (“You” and “I”) are mobilized to produce meaning in a passage through a third space which “constitutes the discursive conditions of enunciation that ensure that the meaning and symbols of culture have no primordial unity or fixity; that even the same signs can be appropriated, translated, rehistoricized and read anew” (Bhabba 1994: 37). Thus, the third space highlights the openness, dynamism, and non-essentialism of culture which is susceptible to interpretation and invocation in different contexts by individuals of different social and cultural backgrounds, and therefore it is often ambivalent and contradictory. The second dimension of the concept of third spaces is located, not on the conceptual level, but on the spatial level of contact, of hybridity, of in-betweenness, and on the overlap of borderline zones and borderline situations. This dimension refers to a space of negotiation within and between cultures in which the borderlines are being destabilized, for instance, in the case of constructs such as native and foreign, Other and self. It results in a genuinely blended third space which is no longer reducible to the two (or more) original references contributing to the constitution of the space in-between which is spread out and shared between the informing sources (cf. Section 4.7). It may be important to emphasize the concept of the third space as a useful metaphor here, because there are, of course, far more complex influences at work than the triadization model would imply. The emphasis on space in postmodern thought is a result of an epistemological loss of the power of analytic categories of time, traditionally emphasizing diachronic changes, and the simultaneous rise of the category of space, emphasizing the synchronic level of systemic development and change. Thus, one can even speak of a “spatial turn” in cultural studies (cf. Bachmann-Medick 2006:

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284–328). Space in this context is understood as a social construct rather than as a discursive problem; it does not refer to something like territoriality or a stock of traditions, but rather to the collective production of spaces as a multilayered (and occasionally contradictory) social process, to a specific social and psychological location of cultural practices, to a dynamic of social relations which implies the dynamism and fragility of space. In postmodernism, “There are no fixed boundaries and no fortress walls; theories and themes can be drawn in from disciplines and may flock back in a transformed state to influence thinking there” (Baldwin et al. 2004:41). The spatial turn brings with it its own vocabulary of cultural analysis, for instance, terms such as marginality, fringe, mapping, border, location, deterritorialization, center, and periphery, all of which suggest a synchronic conceptualization and theorizing of different analogous levels and dimensions: the individual and the social, the local and the global, the concrete and the imagined, practice and representation. These categories are not pure and atomistic but fused and blended. The same is true for cultures which, as a matter of principle, do not exist in isolation from one another in a pure form: “Other cultures are not a mute external fact but shape its self-definition, and constitute a silent and unacknowledged presence within it” (Parekh 2006: 163). Modern multicultural societies have migrants from other countries and cultures living in their midst who contribute to the development of new spaces in the host cultures. This can be seen in many fields of ordinary life, for example, at its most basic level in eating habits where (a toneddown version of) Indian curry has surpassed traditional fish & chips as the favorite English dish, and Turkish Döner Kebab is challenging Bratwurst and Currywurst as the most-consumed fast food in Germany. On a more complex level, someone of Indian descent living in Britain, or someone of Turkish descent living in Germany, has to negotiate identities located between the poles of Indian/Turkish, and British/German cultures and traditions. These negotiations can further be broken down into regional, professional, social, religious, ascribed, role-dependent, and many other strands of identity, all to a large extent subjectively blended and to some extent socioculturally ascribed (cf. Chapter 6). They may include apparently irreconcilable traditions such as arranged marriage in certain Asian cultures (see Section 10.2, Principle 8), or female genital mutilation which is practiced in many countries in Africa, the Middle East, and parts of Southeast Asia. These traditions pose a challenge for liberal multicultural societies because they deny the individual the right of self-determination (cf. Bredella 2012: 124–140). But even these collective traditions are open to change through subjective negotiation of culturally induced differences by people living in a multicultural society because “they integrate, reflect upon, and modify their own cultural heritage and that of other people with whom they come into contact. Human identity

242 | 8 The interplay of cultures: Constructs of interculture is created, as Taylor puts it, dialogically, including our actual dialogues with others” (Gutmann 1994: 7, cited in Bredella 2012: 127; emphasis in the original). Thus it is the intercultural third space which provides the potential for overcoming cultural differences, both subjectively and collectively. The third space in interculturality, in that sense, does not simply mean interaction between cultures and their proponents in the sense of exchanging the respective cultural specificities. Instead, it aims to create an intermediary field that is constituted subjectively (and possibly collectively) as a field of genuinely new knowledge, originating from the margins of the cultures involved. Only from this basis can the reciprocal identification of difference be approached, that is, on the basis of a genuine third space, located in a continuum in-between cultures. This space is always a subjective blend or a subjectively adapted bricolage of different aspects of these categories which opens up new perspectives on constructs and configurations without annihilating them in the monoculturally informed process of understanding, as is characteristic of acculturating translations which tend to integrate the differential, the foreign, into the familiar cultural and conceptual categories, thereby destroying it in its originality and authenticity. This is because the intercultural third space itself is a product of interwoven discursive cultural constructs. It is already dynamically located between cultures and offers a hybrid, basically non-repressive and fundamentally open inter as the foundation of interpretation and construction. However, this does not mean that the third space between cultures is beyond potential criticism, or that it exists in a political, ethical, or moral vacuum. It can still be subjected to such critical analyses because it is embedded in intersections of the different D/discourses of the cultures involved, which ultimately form a third space on a discursive level. This is what Bhabha (1994: 25; cf. above) means when he says that the third space “is neither the one nor the other,” or when the intercultural philosopher Ram A. Mall (1998: 57) defines the third space as being “orthaft, jedoch ortlos” [apparently located but without conventional location] (my translation, A.W.). From this fragmented third space, Mall argues, a critical-reflexive distance without prejudices is facilitated for both the native and the foreign cultures and conceptualizations (cf. Mall 1993: 9).⁷ This line of argument takes the third space to be a genuinely new territory of construction which is somewhat suspended between the different cultures, languages, and Discourses contributing to their fragmented existence. These new spaces of construal facilit-

7 Mall may be too optimistic with this hypothesis. Although existing prejudices may be dissolved on the basis of third spaces, there is the danger that other, qualitatively different stereotypes and prejudices can arise from this basis.

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ate categories and norms of construction, including criticism, just as their underlying contributory cultures do, so that they can be criticized, while simultaneously forming the new foundations for critique. However, due to their dynamism, fragmentation, and inessentiality, they may be more difficult to pin down, so they offer less apparent potential for critique than modernist constructs of cultures. Understanding other languages and cultures in a non-distorting, or nonimperialistic manner, then, is only possible on the basis of this dynamic third space. If the categories for construction, action, perception, and understanding are exclusively the ones used by the first language and culture, the Other will be appropriated in order to fit these categories; otherwise it would remain alien (cf. Gadamer 1975: 15). Therefore, the only chance of understanding the other culture (without distorting or even destroying it in the process of appropriation) lies within the interpenetration and transposition of these principally monocultural categories. It implies that the subjective position of comprehension is now dislocated from the dominant L1 categories and relocated within the shifting bases of the third space; the person or institution wanting to understand or act intersubjectively must have developed this hybrid space between the languages and cultures concerned, which transcends the basis for understanding provided by familiar L1 and unfamiliar L2 categories alike, even if the subject may not be consciously aware of this process. However, it is very difficult to achieve a genuine intercultural third space, as it presupposes comprehensive knowledge of and competence in both the first and the other language and culture, which can in turn only be acquired in the course of a long and arduous learning process with deliberate effort and intention, as well as heightened engagement and awareness,⁸ be it in the institutional L2 classroom or by living and acting within the second language community. During this process of intensively learning the second language and its underlying cultural patterns, the subject’s native categories of understanding and construction will become more relative in a reciprocal process of understanding, deconstruction, and reconstruction, hence heightening the comprehension of linguistic, social, and cultural patterns in their relativity and negotiability. An understanding of the other culture and its configurations in its totality is, of course, impossible to achieve for any person, just as it is also impossible to completely understand the native culture in all its manifestations and processes, simply because culture is not (and cannot be) stored anywhere in its totality (cf. Kronenfeld 2002: 430). Culture is a highly dynamic and multilayered construct,

8 The long and intensive L2 learning process fundamentally involves the affective and psychological levels of the student in his or her advances into the other language and culture. This also has repercussions for his or her attitudes and constructs of personal identity (cf. Chapter 9).

244 | 8 The interplay of cultures: Constructs of interculture with some layers operating beyond the level of consciousness (tacit knowledge, cf. Chapter 7). Thus, attempts to understand aspects of another culture are structured in such a way that they are triggered by specific items, experiences, or observations. From this starting point, the process of exchange and understanding is aimed at deeper layers of cultural patterns in order to construct a reciprocal rule that can connect the previously known patterns to the new configuration at which the cognitive efforts are directed. In this fashion, the particular aspects of the other cultural concepts and configurations, although cognitively grasped, still maintain their authentic right in opposition to comparable internalized native categories, albeit in an attenuated manner (as they are understood on the basis of a third place located on a continuum between the cultures). The German philosopher Waldenfels (1997: 53) comments: “Ohne dieses Zwischen gäbe es keine Intersubjektivität und Interkulturalität, die ihren Namen verdient. Es bliebe bei der bloßen Erweiterung oder Vervielfältigung des Eigenen, das Fremde wäre immer schon zum Schweigen gebracht” [Without this space ‘in-between’ there would be no any intersubjectivity and interculturality deserving of the name. There would be only the expansion and duplication of the native categories, the Other would always have already been silenced] (my translation, A.W.). Therefore, the hybrid space of the inter of dynamic conceptions has to be understood as the primary location for the collective and individual construction of meaning. The inter not only refers to intercultural categories, but also to all intracultural and intersubjective levels of society, Discourse, and culture. The consciousness of the subject, for example, is symbolically constituted by the intersection and interweaving of languages, conceptualizations, values, orders, D/discourses, and systems. Perception, emotion, motivation, and mental processes rely fundamentally on the interplay of these categories when they are triggered by the given circumstances (cf. Chapter 2). Third places, therefore, are not only located at the intersection of different cultures, but are also characteristic of the inner differentiation of any given culture, society, and subject (cf. Chapters 2–7). Bhabha (1994: 36) highlights this close dependence of the subjective human mind on the sociocultural and linguistic context, and emphasizes the difference inherent to language as the crucial element in the production of meaning: The linguistic difference that informs any cultural performance is dramatized in the common semiotic account of the disjuncture between the subject of a proposition (énoncé) and the subject of enunciation, which is not represented in the statement but which is the acknowledgement of its discursive embeddedness and address, its cultural positionality, its reference to a present time and a specific place. The pact of interpretation is never simply an act of communication between the I and You designated in the statement. The production of meaning requires that these two places are mobilized in the passage through a Third Space,

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which represents both the general conditions of language and the specific implication of the utterance in a performative and institutional strategy of which it cannot “in itself” be conscious. (Bhabha 1994: 36; emphasis in the original)

Just as language does not allow for the production of fixed and unambiguous meaning, the subject cannot speak with one unambiguous voice in his or her own original words (cf. Section 4.1). It is the third space in its quality as a mobilization of the subjective voice and the social, yet momentarily subjectively instrumentalized tool of language in a “spatial relation within the schemata and strategies of discourse” (Bhabha 1994: 36) which allows for intersubjective (and intrasubjective) interaction, albeit at the cost of an ambivalence of meaning, since neither is one or the other. Claire Kramsch (2009a: 199–201) has recently suggested replacing the spatial metaphor of space or place in intercultural L2 learning with the notion of “symbolic competence.” She argues that the metaphor of third place is too static to capture the relational state of mind operating between languages (cf. Kramsch 2009a: 200) and is also lacking a “discourse dimension” (Kramsch 2012: 17). Reframing the notion of a third place as symbolic competence has the potential to more appropriately capture “the symbolic value of symbolic forms and the different cultural memories evoked by different symbolic systems” (Kramsch 2009a: 201), as well as emphasizing the semiotic character of mediating L2 and L1 constructs by way of looking “both at and through language” (Kramsch 2009a: 201; emphasis in the original). While Kramsch’s suggestion is certainly valid, in particular for highlighting the symbolic mediation of concepts pertaining to self, Other, and world, the same elements of L2 learning can be captured in the metaphors of space and place, if one emphasizes exactly the categories of symbolic mediation, dynamism, blending, hybridity, embodiment, subjectivity, and translation so that the intercultural space cannot be misunderstood as being static and essential. The use of the spatial metaphor in intercultural L2 learning has the advantage of mapping out the elements of constant blending and translating linguistic and sociocultural frames in a way that fosters an easy yet nuanced understanding of these complex processes (cf. Chapter 10). Intercultural spaces can be seen as a doubling of intracultural spaces “inbetween”: the individual already occupies intra-cultural dynamic spaces “inbetween” different linguistic signs, cultural patterns, norms of action, dominant Discourses, and spaces for subjective dispositions of his or her first culture and society. By learning a second language, these intracultural spaces are increasingly put into a new perspective through direct or mediated encounters with different social structures, cultural patterns, categories, conceptualizations, and conventions. This process opens up a new dimension of intercultural construction and

246 | 8 The interplay of cultures: Constructs of interculture blending of spaces, located on a continuum between the conceptualizations, values, and norms of discourses of the two (or more) cultures involved. This new dimension fundamentally transforms subjective meaning and categories of construction based solely on the native linguistic and cultural system; it enables blended, oscillating, and translational constructions of new meaning by engaging with differential linguistic signs, social conventions, and cultural patterns.

8.3 Translating cultures The activities and processes of translating cultural patterns, constructs, and processes are at the heart of the mobilization of intercultural third spaces. They are also at the heart of L2 acquisition, because the other linguistic items and sociocultural constructs will in the mind of the L2 learner, at least at the initial and intermediate levels of L2 learning, be translated into the familiar constructs of the native language and socioculture. However, in the process of L2 learning, the subjective position of the L2 learner drifts away from the L1-mediated constructs and towards a position between the languages and sociocultures involved, thus opening up intercultural spaces as new bases for construction. The translational turn in cultural studies (cf. Bachmann-Medick 2006: 238– 283) originated from the insight that in a world of increasing cross-cultural contact and multicultural societies, of reciprocal dependencies and global networks, mutual understanding cannot be achieved by linguistic and textual translations alone; these have to be complemented and expanded by cultural inter- and intrasemiotic systems, including Discourses, genres, schemata, and frames (cf. Chapter 3). The metaphor of translating cultures relies to a certain extent on the metaphor of culture as text (cf. Section 7.2); the assumption is that, since texts can be translated from one language into another, cultural aspects also have to be translatable from one culture into another. However, culture is a much broader concept than text (or language), and therefore this kind of translation must be much more inclusive. In the wake of the “writing-culture debate” (cf. Section 7.2) in ethnography which treated the process of depicting other cultures itself as its object of analysis, it became evident that an authentic translation of other cultural patterns, processes, and categories into the familiar native cultural concepts was all but impossible; there would always be distortions and incompatibilities as to the appropriate translation of culture-specific contextual and life-world (lebensweltliche) elements. This is particularly true of the sphere of tacit cultural knowledge which guides social action to a considerable degree (cf. Chapter 7). But it is also true of connotations and affective elements which, for example, may be indicated in the

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gender of inanimate nouns in languages making this kind of distinction, for instance, in the majority of European languages, such as French, German, Spanish, Irish, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Czech, Polish, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, and Greek. One of the best-known poems by the German writer Heinrich Heine (1797–1856), entitled “Ein Fichtenbaum steht einsam” [A Pine Tree Stands Lonesome] (Heine 1827: 137), plays with the tension between the lonely male pine tree (der Fichtenbaum) who is covered in ice and snow in northern Europe and is dreaming of an exotic palm tree, which in German is female (die Palme), located in the hot and mysterious orient. This tension between the sexes cannot be captured in the English translation, as the English language does not provide for genders. The English translation is thus confined to using the bland “the” or “it” instead, completely missing out on a central strand of meaning of the poem. Jakobson (2000) provides many more examples for this process; one of them is the following: “The Russian painter Repin was baffled as to why Sin had been depicted as a woman by German artists: he did not realize that ‘sin’ is feminine in German (die Sünde), but masculine in Russian (rpex)” (Jakobson 2000: 142; emphasis in the original). The grammatical gender has implications for the memorization of nouns, as they have to be remembered as gendered items for appropriate linguistic use. But gender also has implications for the subjective and collective imagination and fantasy, as Jakobson has shown. Deutscher (2011) points out the enriching implications of gendered nouns in language for workings of the mind: “My mind may be weighed down by an arbitrary and illogical set of associations, but my world has so much to it that you [English speakers] miss out on, because the landscape of my [gendered] language [Hebrew] is so much more fertile than your arid desert of ‘it’s’” (Deutscher 2011: 215). Clearly, distinctions like these are significant for translation and point to the necessity of their presence the cultural context in translation, where relevant.⁹ In the interpretative approach to reading culture, an authentic reading without noticeable mistranslations could only occur from within a culture which provides the common frame for understanding. Hence, the metaphor of “translating cultures” means to a large extent construing (or “othering”) cultures on the basis of the assumed authority of translation. However, translation is always influenced by socioculturally generated categories and conventions of construction (e.g.,

9 Ian Roe (1998) provides many entertaining examples of the impossibility of translating genders from other languages into English, for example, the gender of rivers in German (der Rhein, die Elbe), or verbs in German that denote the formal (siezen) and informal (duzen) address, even when they matter a great deal because, for example, they are used in German in deliberate word play.

248 | 8 The interplay of cultures: Constructs of interculture frames, schemata), as well as by the conscious deployment of certain narrative strategies by the translator. It is impossible to achieve a direct one-dimensional translation of constructs and D/discourses from one cultural context to another, as the inherent conceptualizations and frames, the social practices, habitus, and activities of members of different cultural communities are different.¹⁰ This was astutely observed by Walter Benjamin when he posits that: “While content and language form a certain unity in the original, like a fruit and its skin, the language of translation envelops its content like a royal robe with ample folds. For it signifies a more exalted language than its own and thus remains unsuited to its content, overpowering and alien” (Benjamin 2000: 19). Benjamin compares the task of the translator here to the work of a poet by creating the image of the former’s work as rich (royal) and encompassing (ample), comprehensive yet enveloping (albeit not in the same close manner than the original relation between language and content). Thus, there only can be an allegorical form of transferring, depicting, and mediating between cultural elements in which the translator applies his or her own preferences and internalized cultural patterns. Hence, the process of translating cultures, including the translation of other ways of thinking and construing, has to be understood as fundamentally inseparable from a cultural framework of social action. Consequently, the activity of translating cultures is not only confined to a semantic level, but refers to all aspects of liminal spaces in the context of intercultural discourse and dialogue. Translation operates in the intercultural third space and tries, first of all, to reflect from that location the processes of constituting difference before trying to negotiate these differences; this operation must also include the status and motivations of the translator as a cultural subject. Cultures, then, cannot be understood as mere objects of translation but as constellations of conflict, difference, dynamism, and mixing of influences which also includes the position of the translator. His or her position in this process cannot be that of a detached observer, constructing his or her discourse from a principal distance to what he or she describes and translates, since he or she is clearly culturally situated. Rather, his or her discursive positionings have to engage in the discursive translation process, thus becoming part of it. In the translation process, the translator’s basic categories of interpretation and construction change, as do his or her constructs of subjective

10 The impossibility of one-to-one translations may explain the popularity in Germany of bilingual editions of some French, Spanish, English, and Latin texts where the original is provided on one page, and the translation on the opposite page, thus appealing to readers with a good competence in understanding the L2 in its sociocultural context. They exist in English, too, but may not be as widespread.

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and professional identity. Translations do not imply the confrontation of cultural norms, values, and constructs, but rather dialogue and interaction, thus elevating reciprocal translations (as processes of negotiation) to constitutive acts for emerging identities and (inter-)actions. By becoming part of the translation process itself, the translator has to develop a certain cognitive distance from both the content of the translation and the activity of translating in order to consciously reflect on his or her position within that process, thereby avoiding any essentialist traps which might lead to inappropriate translation. But even if the translator has an excellent knowledge of the languages and cultures involved, he or she still makes judgments as to the appropriate translation of lexical items, concepts, and configurations and their cultural context, which necessarily distort the translation semantically from the source text. Making these judgments is an integral part of the translation process, as the cultural audiences of source and translated texts are not the same; therefore, implications and insinuations which can be taken for granted as easily understood by one cultural audience might go completely unnoticed by the audience receiving the translation. It is part of the task of the translator to mediate, minimize and/or explain these interferences. However, in the translation process, the original text should not be caused to disappear by over-adapting and absorbing it completely into the target language and its culture. Were this the case, it would lose its authenticity and otherness, and hence lose its important quality of alienating the familiar. The translator has to recognize that acts of cultural translation require a language which is ambivalent, as it is positioned on the borderline of different systems. The translator has many choices open to her or him to defuse such problems of translation: (1) the original text can be completely absorbed into the target language and culture (and thus disappear); (2) it can be conceptually construed into a dynamic third space located between the cultures, or (3) it can be left largely in the source culture domain, as Walter Benjamin (2000) suggests, albeit at the risk of being met with non-understanding, misunderstanding or, worst of all, apathy by the potential recipient. The renowned translator Michael Hofmann (1999) describes the complex problems and inherent frustrations of producing a comprehensive English translation of a foreign text in its sociocultural context: “I want to give an English readership the smell, the fingertip sense, the colour, the quiddity, the specific experience of another place. To show how people travel, how they speak, what they wear, what their history is, their geography, their politics. I want the English reader to get inside their skin” (Hofmann 1999: 73). Hofmann goes on to say that this approach is doomed with certain audiences because, “Neither the English, nor the Americans like to be transported in that way” (Hofmann 1999: 73). In taking the expectations and preferences of the readership into account, translations produced for an American or English audience

250 | 8 The interplay of cultures: Constructs of interculture may be of a different, more leveling quality than translations into other languages. Non-English speaking audiences, by contrast, are typically much more open to these kinds of resistant translations because of the dominance of Anglo-American cultural products (including language), in particular Hollywood movies and (usually subtitled) TV-series.¹¹ However, only a translation that recognizes the foreign by interrupting and breaking the stream of familiar language can, at least for a moment, interrupt or even de-center the taken-for-granted familiarities of the monolingual recipient. Lefevere (1999: 76) introduces the concepts of “conceptual grid” and “textual grid” in order to capture some of the extralinguistic contexts of translations. Both grids are intertwined and have been internalized during the processes of socialization. Hence, the phrases Once upon a time or I raise my glass each trigger a certain grid (or frame) and expectation in the reader or listener who has been socialized into a Western society which is different from, for example, a text announcing the arrival of an airplane. Lefevere (1999) concludes that, “Problems in translating are caused at least as much by discrepancies in textual and conceptual grids as by discrepancies in languages,” and that “grids, in their interplay, may well determine how reality is constructed for the reader, not just of the translation, but also of the original” (Lefevere 1999: 77). With this remark, Lefevere refers to the fact that translation is at the heart of human cognition, considering that voluntary thought operates with symbols to which meaning is assigned in an arbitrary manner. Thus, language is already a translation from non-linguistic signs (e.g., objects in the material and social worlds) to linguistic signs and concepts. In addition, considering Bakhtin’s concept of heteroglossia and polyphony, social language is already a translation of another text, as Octavio Paz explicates: “Each text is unique, yet at the same time it is the translation of another text. No text can be completely original because language itself, in its very essence, is already a translation – first from the nonverbal world, and then, because each sign and each phrase is a translation of another sign, another phrase” (Paz 1992: 154). If one expands Paz’ notion of text to all cultural and social phenomena, including textual and conceptual grids, the importance of translation becomes obvious. This has also consequences for the definition of the term “translation” since it relates not only to translating bits and elements from one grid to another in an “objective” and detached fashion, but also to the individual processes of subjectively positioning oneself between different Discourses, which has repercussions for the construction of a personal identity (cf. Chapter 6). Thus, translational pro-

11 These translations of texts for visual media, however, only concern the linguistic level, since the visual elements are not altered, adapted, or translated.

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cesses lie at the heart of the postmodern hybrid personality, as they do for hybrid societies and cultures. An important contribution to cultural translation studies has been made by Mary Louise Pratt who introduces the concept of “transculturation,” borrowed from the Cuban sociologist Fernando Ortiz who used it to overcome the dichotomy of “acculturation” and “deculturation” (Pratt 1992: 228) in colonial studies. Acculturation means the acquisition and integration of other cultural beliefs and practices into one’s own cognitive and behavioral structures, whereas deculturation refers to the parallel process of erasing one’s traditional cultural traits. In ethnography, the term transculturation refers to the role of peripheral or subordinate groups in selecting and reconfiguring the materials transferred to them from a metropolitan or dominant group, thus creating new cultural phenomena (neoculturation). The concept of transculturation also has relevance for L2 learning, because the learner (both as subject and as group-member) also selects and reconfigures materials, values, and norms and transfers them to his or her particular needs at a particular phase in the L2 acquisition process. The experience of uprooting oneself from one’s first cultural milieu and erasing one’s traditional cultural traits are elements that can affect L2 learners as members of minority cultures prior to, but also during the process of learning a L2. The interculturally competent teacher should make these experiences productive for the intercultural L2 classroom, if they can be verbalized and if the individual L2 learner is comfortable with bringing his or her experiences into the L2 classroom. The notion of transculturation can be relevant for the L2 classroom in this regard; however, these experiences of some L2 learners are not the main focus of the L2 classroom which tries to facilitate meaningful intercultural experiences of L2 learners in terms of negotiating third places between the dominant L1-related constructs and those of the L2; hence the L2 classroom tends to be intercultural rather than transcultural. Pratt, however, transfers the concept of transculturation to travel writing, and introduces other concepts that may be of relevance for both intercultural communication and translation. The term contact zone refers to one of these concepts. Pratt defines contact zones as, “social spaces where disparate cultures meet, clash and grapple with each other, often in highly asymmetrical relations of domination and subordination – like colonialism, slavery, or their aftermaths as they are lived out across the globe today” (Pratt 1992: 4). She subsequently narrows down this definition of contact zone with the following specification as, “the space of colonial encounters, the space in which people geographically and historically separated come into contact with each other and establish ongoing relations, usually involving conditions of coercion, radical inequality, and intractable conflict” (Pratt 1992: 6). Thus, the term contact zone emphasizes the asymmetry of the spaces of encounter between cultures,

252 | 8 The interplay of cultures: Constructs of interculture or more precisely, members of different cultures. Pratt highlights not only the asymmetry between dominant and subordinate cultures and conflictual situations, but also the fact that the modern ethnographic translator is no longer a member of the dominant culture who tries to translate the subordinate culture into categories of the metropolitan culture: he or she is now a cultural hybrid with roots in both cultures. However, in the texts produced by the colonized (or by hybrids), the conceptual power of representation continues to lie with the metropolitan cultures and languages, as they dominate international discourse (cf. Phillipson 1992). Translation opens up intercultural spaces which are neither completely alien nor completely familiar; they contain specific cultural and linguistic layers, creating cultural and linguistic spaces “in-between,” or third spaces which also require constructive efforts on the part of the recipient. Bhabha emphasizes the unique creative potential of the translational liminal space by suggesting that, we should remember that it is the “inter” – the cutting edge of translation and renegotiation, the in-between space – that carries the burden of the meaning of culture. It makes it possible to begin envisaging national anti-nationalist histories of the “people”. And by exploring this Third Space, we may elude the politics of polarity and emerge as the others of our selves. (Bhabha 1994: 38–39)

Thus, according to Bhabha, monocultural spaces are much too reliant on themselves, to the extent that they have lost the power of fundamental cultural critique. This task has been transferred to liminal third spaces which have access to alternative conceptualizations, cultural patterns, and frames. With this creative potential, they can reveal tacit knowledge and introduce new knowledge into private and public spaces and Discourses. When the third space in-between essences, cultures, and people is occupied by a person, it does not leave subjectivity unaffected; it has transforming effects on the subject’s potential to understand, construct, and act. Therefore, even translation of the familiar and the unfamiliar within a given culture is a creative process of constituting meaning for both the subject and the community, thus dissolving and overcoming essentialist and binary concepts. The traditional (i.e., linguistically based) concept of translation and its recent elevation to a “turn” in the humanities (cf. Bachmann-Medick 2006: 238–283) mainly relates to the encounter of two (or more) languages and cultures. In order to gain new insights into the constellation of encounters between cultures, including in a historical dimension, the notion of interculturality can be conceptualized as a complex process of ongoing cultural translations. It is also neither necessary nor (from the subjective point of view) desirable, that people who have many international contacts (be it in business, sport, leisure, academia, etc.) embark

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on the long and arduous process of learning every relevant foreign language and its cultural context, including constructing subjective third places for themselves between the cultures concerned. While on the one hand global icons are being developed in order to enhance the global circulation of information and goods, on the other hand the process of globalization has elevated English as the hegemonic language of the world with the inherent forces of cultural leveling (cf. Philippson 1992; Kumaravadivelu 2008). This process has led many people in predominantly English-speaking countries (such as Great Britain, the U.S., Ireland) to believe that learning a L2 is not necessary, since apparently English is enough to get on in the world. This attitude, however, overlooks the linguistically, conceptually, and (inter-)culturally enriching traits of L2 acquisition. These two developments of global icons and English as the dominant language, together with ongoing attempts to articulate differences in the increasingly globalized world community, have contributed to the rise of the “translational turn,” extending translation into an ethnologically enriched category of the social sciences and an important cultural technique. In contrast to Samuel Huntington’s (1996) pessimistic assumption that linguistic and cultural untranslatability will ultimately result in a “clash of civilizations,” the translational turn suggests that all elements of cultures and languages are translatable, thus making cultural differences principally understandable and therefore negotiable (cf. Chapter 9). Huntington’s notion of civilizations or cultures is outdated, in that he assumes a rigidity and essentialism that cannot capture the frictions, dynamics, and flexibility of culture or, to use his terminology, “civilization.” Semantic primes could be used in order to overcome culture-specific conceptualizations or configurations and to reduce even complex linguistic or cultural constructs to relatively simple ideas that are translatable between languages and cultures. Semantic primes are the underlying basic conceptualizations for all human languages, based on the assumption that all human languages share the same propensity to encode the same basic set of concepts in words (cf. Wierzbicka 1996). Semantic primes are “the smallest set of basic concepts in terms of which all other words and concepts can be explicated; literally, ‘the simplest lexis of paraphrase and explanation’” (Goddard and Wierzbicka 2007: 107), arrived at by the mechanism of reductive paraphrase. There are about 60 semantic primes (or semantic primitives) that have been identified as the universal basic building-blocks of meaning (cf. Goddard 2002; Dirven and Verspoor 1998: 142; Goddard and Wierzbicka 2007: 107). These semantic primes consist of basic semantic elements in the categories of substantives, determining elements, experiencing verbs, actions and processes, existence and possession, quantifiers, life and death, evaluation and description, spatial concepts, temporal concepts, relational elements and logical elements (Dirven and Verspoor 1998: 143). For

254 | 8 The interplay of cultures: Constructs of interculture example, the semantic primes for the category of “actions, events and movement” are just the verbs “do, happen, move” (Goddard 2002: 14). As such, semantic primes have the potential to dissolve essential concepts of language and culture like the ones Huntington implies, and at the same time create a cross-cultural platform for understanding.¹² This is the reason why Goddard and Wierzbicka (2007: 105) suggest semantic primes should become “core vocabulary in the L2 classroom.” Although semantic primes can provide access to the meaning system of other cultures, semantic primes are semantically reduced to such an extent that much of the culturally charged meaning has been lost. This sort of reductive paraphrase and translation does not have the potential to broaden cultural conflicts to the extent of non-existence; on the contrary, diversification is an integral part of translation so that in all contacts, transpositions, mixings, and translations the translator and the critical recipient are aware of the instances of mediation in order to disrupt the all too smooth processes of translation and advance to the level of cultural differences. The goal of translation is not to resolve existing differences into a new harmonized totality, but to create another locus of inscription and intervention: “Differences in culture and power are constituted through the social conditions of enunciation: the temporal caesura, which is also the historically transformative moment, when a lagged space opens up in-between the intersubjective ‘reality of signs . . . deprived of subjectivity’ and the historical development of the subject in the order of social symbols” (Bhabha 1994: 242; emphasis in the original). Translation thus becomes a specific interventional space of action located within, across, and between cultures which are asymmetric due to the “temporal caesura,” that is, the contact zone of dominating and dominated cultures (e.g., in colonialism). However, culture is not a translatable textual entity since it is itself constituted in continuous processes of constant translation of the different unequal conditions of power within a specific cultural community in a socio-historical dimension. Translating culture, then, can only refer to translating elements of a culture in specific contexts, putting them into a specific relation to comparable configurations of the other culture through the dynamic third space suspended between them. The process of translating culture on an intercultural level, therefore, cannot be content with translating the sphere of representation of signs and symbols; it must also include the contextual social and cultural spheres and try to translate

12 However, semantic primes reduce the culture-specific conceptualizations to such an extent that, although facilitating basic cross-linguistic and cross-cultural understanding of these items, they at the same time strip them of their specific cultural context and, thus, of many immanent strands of meaning.

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the role of the institutional infrastructure and the economic and political frameworks of Discourse. Ideally, it would also include an interpretive effort, focused on the matrix of conceptualizations and actions, that arises from the experience of everyday living within the other society and culture (Lebenswelt), as favored by the interpretive approach of ethnography (cf. Chapter 7). In addition, the translation process also has to consider the conditions of medial structures of translation as the preconditions for including deep structures of cultural and intercultural processes. One of the difficulties of cultural translation is the fact that the categories used for trans-cultural comparison (e.g., time, history, society, individual, power, work, action, D/discourse, culture, development, modernity, and language) are neither stable entities nor do they have the same value and meaning across cultures. A critical theory of translation, therefore, has to make productive the consciousness of the instability of such categories in the sense of interaction, exchange, and reciprocity, but has also to recognize the limits of translation, as sometimes certain configurations are not fully translatable between cultures, for instance, culturally highly charged poetry such as Japanese Haiku (cf. Krusche 1984; cf. Section 4.3). Translation in this sense is a creative re-interpretation of cultural phenomena in the process of transfer between socioculturally constituted positions, thus destabilizing taken-for-granted interpretations: This in-between space of negotiation no longer belongs only to exceptional beings (the great modernist writers, translators, privileged migrants) but more and more comes to represent the tensions of hybridity related to the postcolonial subject and even to the national citizen. This altered understanding of translation as an activity which destabilizes cultural identities, and becomes the basis for new modes of cultural creation, is crucial to contemporary thinking. (Simon 1996: 135)

However, such a translational approach of destabilizing cultural identity runs the risk of provoking a closure of the intercultural third space for certain individuals. For example, Western societies have lost their previously-held self-assured conception of themselves as harbingers of progress, wealth, and happiness in a globalized world. Backlash phenomena such as ethnicity, hostility towards foreigners, and religious fundamentalism, can be interpreted as indicative of ignorant and helpless attempts by those who feel threatened by the cultural presence of others. Consequently, they subconsciously turn away from the dynamic, ambivalent, heteroglot, and hybrid third space and return to the assumed safeties of essentialist vocabularies, even if these are politically charged, for example, the dehumanizing vocabularies of racism. The perceived threats to the assumed safeties of the monolingual and monocultural bases of construction, which have the potential to unsettle subjective constructs of personal and social identity, can at times be

256 | 8 The interplay of cultures: Constructs of interculture translated into xenophobic political action. This lays bare the fact that concepts of cultural translation, hybridity, and third spaces must be cognizant of the potential threat of intellectualizing existing social practices which are characterized on the ground by more violence and ugliness in certain sections of society than many of us would concede. Therefore, it is important that the process of translation includes a fundamental self-reflexive attitude which continuously positions the subject as a translator within the relevant complex network of existing linguistic, cultural, and social contexts. It is equally important that the intercultural third places are consciously and deliberately developed by engaged and dedicated L2 learners at their own pace; this development occurs on the subjective level, therefore it cannot be enforced or imposed by others, least of all by the L2 teacher.

8.4 Intercultural understanding The notion of intercultural understanding has become politicized in recent times, in that it has come to be seen as a primary objective for the peaceful coexistence of the people of this world. However, this kind of understanding the Other cannot be achieved in a meaningful manner without accessing the Other’s language and underlying cultural patterns for the construction of meaning. In a narrower sense, it can also mean the comprehension of the Other’s communicative system in order to pursue one’s own objectives; an example of this are the frantic efforts of Western secret services to recruit people skilled in foreign languages, in particular Arabic, in the wake of the complete failure of the US secret services to anticipate the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York on 11 September 2001. These definitive and broad goals of intercultural understanding were summarized, long before 2001, in the following dramatic statement: [I]ncreased contact with other cultures (. . . ) makes it imperative for us to make a concerted effort to get along with and understand other people who are vastly different from ourselves. The ability, through increased awareness and understanding, to coexist peacefully with people who do not necessarily share our backgrounds, beliefs, values, or lifestyles can not only benefit us in our own neighborhoods but can also be a decisive factor in forestalling nuclear annihilations. (Samovar and Porter 1988: 1–2)

Although preventing nuclear annihilations is, of course, an important objective of intercultural understanding in the broadest sense, it does not feature highly on the agenda of second language learning. In this narrower context, the notion of intercultural understanding mainly refers to gaining access to the other’s linguistic system and, through it, to the other’s Lebenswelt. Inherent in the process of learning a second language are the processes of identity-transformation, change

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of attitudes, increased knowledge of other social groups and their practices, skills of interpreting and interacting, and skills of discovery (cf. Byram 2008: 163). These are essential skills and competences for people acting in multicultural settings, as the English Department for Education and Skills (DfES) posited in the wake of the attacks on the World Trade Center: “In the knowledge society of the 21 st century, language competence and intercultural understanding are not optional extras, they are an essential part of being a citizen” (DfES 2002: 5, cited in Starkey 2010: 86). The L2 is thus not only the object of learning as an isolated sign system, but at the same both the medium of communication and a set of historically evolved cultural practices, i.e., a system of communication that allows for interpsychological and intrapsychological constructions of a sociocultural order which helps people use such constructs for constitutive social acts. Like culture, the notion of understanding is a highly complex and contested one. Basically, there are three paradigms of understanding, namely the universal (logocentric), the relativistic (ethnocentric), and the subjective (egocentric) approaches (cf. Witte and Harden 2000: 7–24). The point of departure for the universal school is the assumed universality of the human experience: the other and I share a common physical world, namely planet Earth. Therefore, all humans must have the same basic faculties and devices for perception and understanding. The linguist Noam Chomsky (1965) goes a step further by arguing that humans are innately equipped with a specific “Language Acquisition Device,” a mechanism endowing children with the capacity to derive the syntactic structure and rules of their native language rapidly and accurately from the impoverished input provided by adults (e.g., baby talk, motherese, parentese, cf. Chapter 2). Chomsky believes that all languages share certain formal similarities, leading him to suggest that there has to be a universal grammar whose properties are shared by all human languages. Consequently, his pupil Steven Pinker, building on a hypothesis posited by Fodor (1975; 2008), suggests that understanding and thinking do not operate with the tool of existing human languages but with a prelinguistic medium beyond existing languages: “People do not think in English or Chinese or Apache; they think in a language of thought. (. . . ) Knowing a language, then, is knowing how to translate mentalese into strings of words and vice versa” (Pinker 1994: 81–82). From a hermeneutical perspective, the German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer arrives at a similar conclusion of universal proportion. In order to understand something or someone, the Other has to be appropriated to the subjective cognition, otherwise it would remain alien: “To seek one’s own in the alien, to become at home in it, is the basic movement of the spirit, whose being is only return to itself from what is other” (Gadamer 1975: 15). If this universal hermeneutical approach, which Gadamer intended for the diachronic dimension, is shifted to

258 | 8 The interplay of cultures: Constructs of interculture the synchronic plane, it implies that understanding the Other means assimilating and integrating the Other into one’s own categories and values.¹³ Consequently, this process of understanding the Other is inherently connected to domination, exploitation, and annihilation. The relativistic approach (cf. Section 3.5) rejects this notion of understanding as a form of destructive imperialism. Instead, it recognizes language as the central medium of reflection and communication, which in turn is shaped by specific culturally imprinted categories of perception and construction. Therefore, the notion of a “language of the mind,” or lingua mentis, as a universal system of mental representation is rejected, because the mind “is not a mysterious inner mechanism of a mechanical and general kind, operating according to its own universal lingua mentis, but (. . . ) it is a cultural production, reflecting in its make-up different ethnically and politically structured modes of operation in different circumstances” (Shotter 1993: XV; emphasis in the original).¹⁴ Since the mind, then, is strongly influenced by sociocultural traditions, norms, beliefs, experiences, and conventions, understanding is only possible by sharing this habitus (Bourdieu) as a socially internalized disposition. Hence, the ethnocentric approach is closely linked to linguistic relativity (cf. Section 3.5) which assumes that cultural concepts, categories, and values are inscribed in a language.¹⁵ Understanding a culture in the ethnocentric sense, then, is only possible from a position within that culture and its life-world. Consequently, the relativistic approach to understanding does not colonize the Other in the universal sense, but (a) erects insurmountable barriers between cultures, (b) does not question – and thus legitimizes – the historically evolved basis of suppression and power between cultures, and (c) can be for us, as members of supposedly superior cultures, according to Clifford Geertz, “an easy surrender to the comforts of merely being ourselves (. . . ), and maximizing gratitude for not having been born a Vandal or an Ik” (Geertz 1986: 110–111, cited in Bredella and Christ 1995: 16).

13 Gadamer’s approach is classified as universal here, because he reduces the supposedly global context of tradition (Überlieferungsgeschehen) to only one which, he assumes, is universal: the occidental tradition. He believes that this is the case because “it is not by chance that the unity of history depends on the unity of Western civilization to which Western science in general and history as science, in particular, belong” (Gadamer 1975: 184). 14 Vygotsky (1986: 218) expresses a similar point of view when he suggests that “Thought is not merely expressed in words; it comes into existence through them. (. . . ) Grammar precedes logic” (Vygotsky 1986: 220). 15 This is not an inescapable “prison of language” (Cassirer 1942, cited in Duranti 1997: 64) but merely a recognition of the fact that language provides culture-specific, relatively flexible conceptual categories.

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A third approach to understanding goes beyond assumptions of universalism and relativism: the constructionist approach fundamentally questions the status of persons, “as all equal, self-enclosed (essentially indistinguishable) atomic individuals, possessing an inner sovereignty, each living their separate lives, all in isolation from each other – the supposed experience of the modern self – is an illusion, maintained by the institution between us of certain forms of communication” (Shotter 1993: 110). Thus, the onus of understanding has shifted from the autonomous subject to the structures and patterns of socioculture, as encrypted in language, although it is still the culturally shaped subject as an agent who has to undertake the acts and processes of understanding the Other, be it intra- or interculturally. Without people, there would be no acts of understanding. In the framework of the cognitive sciences, the act of constructing meaning, then, is a process that has to be carried out by the subject who wants to understand, but also has to understand in order to ensure his or her survival in the social world. The process of understanding must be based on the linguistic categories, cultural patterns, conceptual mappings, social structures, and the Discursive body of knowledge available to the subject. Only by referring to his or her socially acquired stock of cultural knowledge can a person ascribe coherent, subjectively satisfactory and socially viable meaning to an utterance, object, or action that is to be understood. Hence, the human mind is both constituted by and realized in the use of human culture and language (cf. Chapters 2–4). However, in the dialogic sense, understanding is always an open-ended process that can never arrive at any definite or stable meaning (cf. Section 7.2). The person who intends to understand presupposes some degree of rationality and sense in the utterances or actions of his or her counterpart, even if they are nonsensical, and tries to reconstruct the reasons for the claims of validity that subjectively underlie the (inter-)actions of the other persons. This means that the Other has to be accessible at least in certain spaces so that efforts at understanding are not completely deflected by the object of that process (cf. Section 7.1). The common ground for understanding the cultural Other can be assumed to be human behavior, emotions, and intentions in general, if one sees cultures as depositories of these human categories in a historical dimension. On closer inspection, however, this operation of understanding other cultural configurations can only lead to hypotheses and analogies with tacit references to the culturally encoded experiences of the person who tries to understand the cultural Other. This kind of understanding the Other results in an imperialistic operation of downplaying, misconceiving, and even eradicating the cultural Other; the subject’s own experiences and values are merely projected onto the Other, whose symbolic spaces are not being accessed from within his or her Lebenswelt and its socioculturally generated presuppositions.

260 | 8 The interplay of cultures: Constructs of interculture Thus, it is obvious that an empathetic model of understanding the cultural Other cannot work. Both the subject and the object of intercultural understanding are embedded in different sociocultural “webs of significance” (Geertz) and contexts of action that structure their processes of construal (including understanding the Other) in particular perspectives and along certain schemata. If the subject can refer to others, or even to his or her self, only through cultural-semiotic media, then the idea of empathically projecting oneself into another independent I must be misconceived. As was shown in Chapter 5, there is no inner “core” of self that can make direct connections with others. The question, then, is not how I can get access to an other self, but how I can get access to the webs of significance that facilitate and guide the other’s actions. In order to succeed in this endeavor, I have to momentarily suspend my own convictions, beliefs, feelings, and intuitions which are culturally construed and socially mediated. This approach implies that there are no cross-culturally valid universal rules or structures for facilitating intercultural understanding,¹⁶ other than the basic human experience of living in this world. The encounter with unassimilable cultural otherness “challenges us intellectually and morally, stretches our imagination, and compels us to recognize the limits of our categories of thought” (Parekh 2006: 167), thus leading us to reflect on and challenge our own cognitive, behavioral, and emotional resources. The process of intercultural understanding requires a reconstruction of the other’s presuppositions and practices which is sensible to the context that forms the basis for the other’s intuitive understanding of his or her self. The basis for this reconstruction is the third space as a genuinely new field of construction, located in-between cultural constructs and social practices, implying that my categories of construal have shifted in the act of trying to understand. But here lies one of the fundamental difficulties in achieving intercultural understanding: one cannot suspend at will the conceptualizations, schemata, norms, values, and beliefs one has internalized in the process of socialization, as they are fundamental for the subjective cognition, behavior, and emotion to an extent that they are automatically and tacitly applied in all processes of understanding and construal. One can, however, embark on a process of understanding the other’s cultural context of (inter-)action, in the course of which the validity of one’s own tacit cultural knowledge and presuppositions is increasingly questioned and qualified. But this is only the case in a sustained manner if the alternative patterns of construction and structures of living are seen as

16 Cf. Wittgenstein’s (1953) theory of language games which do not have super-rules across different games, as discussed in Section 5.1.1.

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fundamentally valid from a subjective perspective. This is potentially a long and arduous process which includes learning the other language (including its inherent conceptualizations, frames, and genres) and gaining fundamental insights to the other cultural system of meaning (and life-world), while at the same time qualifying one’s own schemata, beliefs, and attitudes.¹⁷ Even after a sustained period of intensive learning, this process can never be concluded because the process of understanding as such is never ending. The process of understanding is principally an open process which constantly changes according to even minimal variations in context. Thus, understanding is fundamentally an unending process, not only because of the continuously changing contextual influences, but also due to the nature of the linguistic sign as the prime mediator of meaning and understanding. The linguistic sign as a semiotic tool mediates and construes meaning for the subject and for the language community (albeit on different levels), but cannot be pinned down to one essential, unchanging meaning (cf. Section 7.1), as Stuart Hall suggests: “Meaning is always in the process of emerging, yet any final meaning is constantly deferred” (Hall 1997: 59). Hall refers here to Derrida who posits an endless chain of signifiers, one referring to the other ad infinitum: “[T]he meaning of meaning (. . . ) is infinite implication, the indefinite referral of signifier to signifier. (. . . ) [I]ts force is a certain pure and infinite equivocality which gives signified meaning no respite, no rest, but engages in its own economy so that it always signifies again and differs” (Derrida 1978: 29; emphasis in the original). This entails that meaning cannot be fixed against its transcendental signified. Meaning can never be fully grasped in its entirety, because signifiers only refer, and time does not stand still for them. When we say that we know what concepts such as justice or truth mean, we do violence to these concepts because we close them down to only an aspect of what is entailed in them by attempting to fix them. Therefore, even intracultural understanding is only an approximation of understanding the interactions of other members of the linguistic and sociocultural community (cf. Chapter 4). A one-toone understanding of the utterances and actions of the Other is never possible, since the intersubjective third space is an interplay, or subjective bricolage, of elements of the broader social and cultural influences and the contributions of each of the interactants.

17 While the intercultural language learner may have deficits with regard to the range of L2 vocabulary, complexity of syntax, and phonetics, he or she has an advantage over the monolingual speaker with regard to being conscious of the core aspects of tacit cultural knowledge (cf. Byram 1997).

262 | 8 The interplay of cultures: Constructs of interculture However, the broader sociocultural framework of the conceptualizations, norms, patterns, and subjective positionings in Discourses fosters the illusion of an understanding of the intracultural other, which is characterized by multilateral ease and effortlessness. Of course, each intersubjective event is unique in its details but, for the participants to be able to co-construct meaning, they have to interpret the context as an instance of a jointly recognizable situationtype (e.g., a particular Discourse or genre). This distributed construal of context which facilitates the subjectively construed fleeting stability of meaning from a non-essential and dynamic flow of intersubjective blending of spaces is usually absent in intercultural communication. However, the basic mechanisms of understanding the second language and culture are fundamentally the same as understanding the first language and culture. Problems arise in second language learning with the historically evolved and culturally charged backgrounds of meaning, the boundaries of which – according to the relativistic approach – cannot be overcome unless a person learns to understand the structures and norms of a given society (in terms of skills, customs, folkways, institutions, beliefs, and norms) and its cultural traditions from within that sociocultural framework. This is obviously an unrealistic objective for institutionalized L2 learning, because this would ultimately mean that the learner has to be immersed in the target culture for a long period of time (i.e., several years), and even then it is questionable whether his or her cultural competence can rival that of members of the other speech community, for instance, in construing the finer strands of meaning in the subtext of jokes. It is equally questionable that this individual can willfully suspend the cultural imprint of his or her own cognitive and emotional categories and concepts. But here perhaps the notions of source and target cultures we use in “understanding” this situation are too static; it is not a binary “either – or” opposition of essence, but a highly dynamic and complex one in a dialectic process of accommodation and assimilation, always focused on the subject of understanding. Neither the home culture, the target culture, nor the mind of the learner are static or atomistic entities: they all constantly interact and are consequently subject to ongoing change (cf. Chapter 7). And here the constructionist approach in a sociocultural perspective can move us forward because of its dynamic construction of the self within a highly complex network of sociocultural, mental, and linguistic constructs in various dimensions. From this perspective, other cultures do not have to remain opaque to the L2 learner. The more the learner constructs and understands about the other language, society, and culture, the more he or she becomes critically aware of his or her own L1 linguistic categories and culturally imprinted patterns of meaning and cognitive-emotional construction. Thus, he or she may, for the moment, lose the natural unreflected confidence of moving within them but in the

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long run he or she gains access to other modes of interpretation and social construction which can only enrich – rather than endanger – the learner’s mind and identity. And the mind of the learner does not wander around in a state of disorientation between the logocentric, ethnocentric, and egocentric paradigms of understanding: the anchors of construal are the subjective positionings (actively and passively) within the matrix of linguistic categories, social structures, and cultural patterns available to the individual. The second basis for intercultural understanding is the constructed and agreed “reality” of both speech communities which is intersubjectively and culturally constituted and maintained by the success of a mutually shared practice of action, which in turn determines the theoretically examinable reality (and not the other way round) (cf. Hartmann and Janich 1998: 17–21). Both bases for intercultural understanding are combined in the emerging third space which, for the subjective L2 learner, develops by increasingly gaining access to the other linguistic and cultural constructs and, at the same time, qualifying the validity of constructs of the first language, society, and culture. It is the emerging third space which facilitates intercultural understanding in a way which simultaneously recognizes the validity of the constructs of both (or more) languages, societies, and cultures, without suppressing either of them. When the ability to understand other cultures is itself mediated through language, then the critical reflection process in L2 learning must also include that of the actual position of the self within a certain cultural, institutional, and academic discourse. The process of understanding the Other is closely linked to the simultaneous process of alienating the familiar. Only on this basis can a careful cognitive departure in the direction of understanding the target culture take place.

9 Fostering intercultural competence in the second language classroom In this chapter, the relevance of the theoretical models and approaches to language acquisition, conceptualization, communication, D/discourse, identity, culture, and interculture, as introduced in the previous chapters, will be explored with particular reference to their effects on deliberate intercultural second language and culture learning. Whereas the discussion in the previous chapters was, due to the high level of abstraction, not primarily geared towards practical implementation in the teaching and learning process, this chapter will try to make some of the previously discussed theories, approaches, and reflections fruitful for L2 teaching and learning in an intercultural context.¹ As is obvious from the analyses presented in the previous chapters, the process of institutional L2 learning is understood as being centered on the experiences, expectations, and requirements of the learner as an embodied subject. However, these (and the L2 learning process itself) are fundamentally structured by and embedded in social and cultural practices, to the effect that learning about cultural patterns and social structures of meaning-making has to be treated with the same level of attention as learning the second language as a linguistic system, both of which are integral issues in the intercultural L2 classroom. The acquisition of linguistic fluency is but part of the broader goal of acquiring intercultural competence which includes (meta-)cognitive, emotional, attitudinal, and behavioral dimensions.² These dimensions can be differentiated further into five components which are integral core elements of intercultural competence. Byram’s (1997: 58–64; 2008: 163) well-known definition of intercultural competence refers to five sub-competences (or, as he calls them, savoirs), namely (1) the cognitive savoir: “knowledge of social groups and their products and practices in one’s own and in one’s interlocutor’s country, and of the general processes of societal and individual interaction” (Byram 1997: 58); (2) the cognitive learning-related savoir comprendre: “the ability to interpret a document

1 However, no direct teaching recipes will be presented here because this would, at best, only be possible with reference to particular languages and cultures and, at worst, restrict the open learning process in an undue manner. 2 This statement is true for the typical institutional second language mediation process. Of course, there are also specific instances where adult learners may be interested in just one aspect of the L2, for instance, for the purpose of reading academic texts such as historical sources or legal documents, which does not necessarily involve developing a communicative or intercultural competence.

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or event from another culture, to explain it and relate it to documents or events from one’s own” (Byram 1997: 61); (3) the behavioral and holistically learningrelated savoir apprendre/faire: the “skill of discovery and interaction: ability to acquire new knowledge of a culture and cultural practices and the ability to operate knowledge, attitudes and skills under the constraints of a real-time communication and interaction” (Byram 1997: 63); (4) the strategic and activityrelated savoir s’engager: the “critical cultural awareness/political education: an ability to evaluate, critically and on the basis of explicit criteria, perspectives, practices and products in one’s own and other cultures and countries” (Byram 1997: 63); (5) personality-related savoir-être: “curiosity and openness to suspend disbelief about other cultures and belief about one’s own” (Byram 1997: 57). Byram’s model of intercultural competence provides an excellent differentiation of the sub-competences involved in the general concept of intercultural competence in an educational context. This precise differentiation is a prerequisite for developing teaching and learning materials which transcend the cognitive realm and touch upon affective, behavioral, strategic, personality-related and activity-related dimensions. However, this model does not adequately integrate the important affective dimension of intercultural competence in the educational context, nor does it relate to the deep impact of the process of developing intercultural competence on subjective, social, and cultural constructs of identity. Since these dimensions play a central role for the subjective experience of acquiring intercultural competence, they will be integrated and emphasized in the principles of fostering intercultural competence, as presented in Section 10.2. The general goal of L2 learning is for the subject to develop, holistically, fundamental linguistic, pragmatic, social, cultural, and discursive knowledge and skills, including an explicit understanding of relevant aspects of tacit cultural knowledge and presuppositions of the cultures involved. This is necessary in order to successfully interact in the other language in a spontaneous and appropriate manner, and to develop viable states of intersubjectivity. However, communicative competence is only part of the broader intercultural competence which implies progressive familiarization with the Other and a reciprocal alienation of aspects of the internalized L1 categories, values, and norms of constructing self, Other, and world (cf. Chapter 2). This reciprocal element of L2 encounter was acknowledged by Goethe as long as almost 200 years ago when he wrote: “Wer fremde Sprachen nicht kennt, weiß nichts von seiner eigenen” [Those who know nothing of foreign languages know nothing of their own] (Goethe 1973: 508; my translation, A.W.). In the processes of defamiliarizing internalized categories and familiarizing with the other linguistic and sociocultural patterns, values, and beliefs, the L2 learner develops successively blended intercultural third places in a relational manner, located on a continuum between the dominant Discourses, norms, values,

266 | 9 Fostering intercultural competence in the second language classroom attitudes, meanings, and patterns of the languages and cultures involved. These dynamic third places function as the momentary, yet transient bases for his or her processes of construction on cognitive, emotional, and behavioral planes. They are characterized by a degree of dynamic in-betweenness, or inter, which belongs to neither of the languages and cultures involved, thus facilitating a genuinely new quality of construal without imperialist tendencies of one language silencing the voices of the other (cf. Chapter 8). The metaphors of space and place are used in this context in order to illustrate the complexities of factors involved, i.e., the complexities of constructs of identity (cf. Chapter 6), of culture and intercultures (Chapters 7 & 8), of language and interaction, of D/discourses and positioning, and so on. These factors are constantly developing and put at risk (from a subjective point of view) in the metaphorical intersubjective and intercultural space which is momentarily suspended between the typically dominant influences. Socioculturally constructed and deeply internalized plausibility structures, values, emotions, and attitudes can be contested in the third space, and this can lead to changes in some of these in a subjective perspective. Teaching and learning culture means not only mediating declarative knowledge in terms of presenting how things are and have been, but encouraging the learners to explore and negotiate how they could have been or how else they could be, thus involving fantasy, creativity, imagination, and detachment. The intercultural third place, therefore, is always more than the sum of two (or more) cultures, as Muneo Yoshikawa, a native of Japan who spent his professional career teaching at the University of Hawaii, writes in an essay of personal reflections: I am now able to look at both cultures with objectivity as well as subjectivity; I am able to move in both cultures, back and forth without any conflict. (. . . ) I think that something beyond the sum of each identification took place, and it became something akin to the concept of “synergy” – when one adds 1 and 1, one gets three, or a little more. This something extra is not culture-specific but something unique of its own, probably the emergence of a new attribute or a new self-awareness, born out of an awareness of the relative nature of values and of the universal aspect of human nature. (Yoshikawa 1978: 220, cited in Kim 2009: 59; emphasis added).

Yoshikawa’s reflections show that a very high level of intercultural competence can indeed be achieved which transcends the cognitive domain. Clearly, emotional and behavioral domains of the self also undergo constant change. This observation has implications for the intercultural L2 teaching and learning process, because these domains have to be included. However, it also seems obvious from Yoshikawa’s reflections that this degree of intercultural competence can only be achieved by a long, intensive, intentional, and constantly reflective process of frequent authentic contact with members of the L2 speech community (e.g., me-

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diated by electronic media, cf. Section 10.2) or immersion in both cultures and languages, generating a high degree of awareness of these constantly ongoing processes of subjective positioning between the relevant languages and cultures. The necessity of consistent reflection on the subjective third place can be demonstrated with the example of individuals who have lived for years, or even decades, in another linguistic and cultural community, but have not acquired intercultural competence, because they have tended to retreat to the perceived safety of their internalized first culture. For instance, there are many migrants who have lived for decades in Germany (or France, Britain, the USA, etc.), but due to the availability of satellite TV and a sizeable migrant community with their own places of interaction (such as cafés, shops, etc.), some do not speak German (or French, English, etc.) beyond pidgin level necessary for very basic communication. Mere exposure to another culture, therefore, is insufficient for consciously achieving a blended third place or acquiring intercultural competence. Although it is possible to develop an intercultural awareness without learning the second language, the quality is different to intercultural competence (which includes linguistic and communicative competences in the L2), because fundamental differences in conceptualization, attitudes, values, and habitus of everyday life may go unnoticed and the authenticity of linguistic, social, and cultural L2 constructs is always reduced by processes of translation to the categories of the first language, society and culture, with all its imperialistic implications (cf. Section 8.3). To turn this argument around, lack of exposure to the authentic other culture does not imply the impossibility of achieving a third place and a high degree of intercultural competence. The crucial precondition for developing genuine intercultural third places is the development of an ongoing awareness of and reflection on the cognitive, emotional, and psychological changes in the subjective development which occurs in the process of learning a second language and culture. Therefore, it is one of the central tasks of the second language classroom to foster rich experientially-based cultural learning processes which effect changes in explicit and implicit cultural knowledge.

9.1 The role of the first language in second language learning Terms such as first language and second/foreign language do not refer to static entities but to porous and dynamic configurations (cf. Section 8.4) which can overlap in certain instances, for example, German loanwords in English, such as Kindergarten, Blitzkrieg, Schadenfreude, Zeitgeist, etc. Languages are also developing all the time in terms of vocabulary (e.g., creation of neologisms such as to underwhelm; cf. Section 4.1), semantics, phonetics, syntax, and grammar (e.g., the

268 | 9 Fostering intercultural competence in the second language classroom marginalization of the genitive case in German). When an individual embarks on the process of learning a L2 in school, he or she has normally already acquired a good command of the first language as a system (i.e., in terms of grammar, syntax, morphology, phonetics, lexis) and of its appropriate use in D/discursive and sociocultural contexts. However, in contrast to the L1, the L2 is not acquired as part of the learner’s general cognitive development.³ Therefore, it is not an essential life-skill in the same way that the first language is and is, as a result, learned with less urgency and less consequential impact on the psyche, affects, and social skills of the learner. Consequently, it would be hypocritical to ignore the fundamental influences of the L1 on the development of the L2 in the mind, emotions, and actions of the learner. The reason for this massive impact of the L1 structures on L2 acquisition can be explained with the central relevance of the L1 on mental, emotional, and behavioral development from early childhood onwards. In his work, Vygotsky analyzed the close interplay of language (as a sociocultural instrument) and voluntary thought, which operates with this instrument on a subjective level. Individuals have to internalize social functions though symbolic interaction: “Every function in the child’s cultural development appears twice: first on the social level, and later, on the individual level; first between people (interpsychological), and then inside the child (intrapsychological). This applies equally to voluntary attention, to logical memory, and to the formation of concepts. All the higher functions originate as actual relations between human individuals” (Vygotsky 1978: 57; emphasis in the original). The primary symbolic sign system which facilitates the subjective internalization of social functions is, of course, language. In the process of internalization, language also has a shaping effect on subjective processes of thought and logical memory (however, see the critique of the concept of “internalization” in Section 2.2.2). By acquiring the L1 through social interaction, the child gradually internalizes the cultural patterns of conceptualization and thought, the plausibility structures, and the social norms of behavior which are inscribed in language and constantly re-inscribed by a myriad of mundane processes of (inter-)acting. The process of internalization occurs in a monothetical manner, “that is, as cohesive wholes and without reconstructing their original process of formation” (Berger and Luckmann 1966: 87). The infant and child grows, so to speak, unconsciously into the language, culture, and society of his or her immediate environment, which in turn has a fundamental impact on his or her ways of constru-

3 An exception is the bilingual speaker who grows up with two (or more) languages. In this case, however, none of the languages involved is a foreign language to the bilingual individual.

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ing, thinking, feeling, behaving, and (inter-)acting, and this becomes ingrained in subjective patterns of thought, feeling, and behavior. The exact mechanics of internalization, i.e., the sequence and causality of what is being internalized why and when, certainly needs more research, as they are in parts hypothesized from observations of child behavior. What can be observed, for instance, is the fact that during the process of internalization, the child never asks questions about the basic validity of what is internalized and how the social becomes internalized as the subjective structures and patterns of conceptualization. Through language, culturally and socially produced and maintained concepts and patterns of thinking, interacting, and acting also grow “into” the child so that his or her psyche settles on the borderline of the subjective and collective. Although language does not determine thought, it certainly influences thought and the structures of (inter-) action and (cf. Section 3.5). The increasing use of the L1 goes hand in hand with the child’s cognitive and psychological development, as well as with his or her needs and interests. When children learn language, they are not simply engaging in one type of learning among many; rather, they are learning the foundations of learning itself. The distinctive characteristic of human learning is that it is a process of making meaning – a semiotic process; and the prototypical form of human semiotic is language. Hence the ontogenesis of language is at the same time the ontogenesis of learning. (Halliday 1993: 93)

Through participation in the activities that constitute everyday life and in the interactions that accompany them, “the child encounters and begins to appropriate such semiotically mediated mental actions as remembering, classifying and reasoning, as these enter into the modes of knowing that are enacted in these activities” (Wells 1999: 101). The acquisition of language implies the parallel acquisition of plausibility structures, ways of classifying, reasoning, and meaningmaking which are predominant in the L1 speech community and culture. Thus, L1 acquisition implies that cultural forces begin to exercise external control over the mental endowment of the child: “This control first resides primarily in other members of the culture (for example, parents, older siblings, playmates, etc.) but eventually humans are able to appropriate this control for themselves and in so doing develop the capacity to regulate their own mental activity” (Lantolf and Thorne 2006: 45). The control of one’s mental activity is normally exercised unconsciously; egocentric speech and inner (or private) speech are important tools in this process. Although they are not identical with the language used by others, being very personal languages with minimal, abbreviated syntax, they operate with concepts based on the subjectively adapted form of social language (cf. Sections 2.2.2 & 2.2.3). The internalized social control of mental activity is neither taught nor learned explicitly, but is accumulated through direct experience of

270 | 9 Fostering intercultural competence in the second language classroom numerous small events which may be insignificant in themselves. If children miss out on this vital part of mental development, they can hardly compensate for it by learning a language and its sociocultural context at a later stage in their lives, as the examples of wolf children, or feral children have demonstrated (cf. Itard 1812; Curtiss 1977). It would be one of the ultimate objectives of L2 learning that inner speech can be developed in the second, rather than in the first language, requiring an internalization of the L2 system, including its social and cultural context in terms of habitus, norms, values, conceptualizations, and plausibility structures. The proficiency of the L2 internalized knowledge could then rival, blend, and even supersede the previously internalized L1 in terms of regulating and mediating thought processes through the L2. However, due to the intimate link between the L1 and cognitive development in infancy, childhood, and adolescence, this standard of L2 internalization for the regulation of one’s mental activities would be extremely difficult to achieve, although clearly sustained L2 learning has an impact on increasing self-regulated speech in the L2 (cf. Lantolf and Thorne 2006: 179–206; Centeno-Cortés and Jiménez-Jiménez 2004; cf. Section 2.2.3). If concepts, understood in cognitive discourse as mental units, are organized by the acquisition of socially pre-conceptualized lexical items, grammatical structures, and cultural patterns in the form of procedural knowledge, they are automatically, that is, spontaneously and subconsciously, used as the basis for all abstract thought and (inter-)action by the subject who has grown into a particular language and socioculture. Thus, the intent to produce a coherent linguistic utterance (or engage in intrasubjective thought) triggers a mental process that is conceptually (and hence semantically, phonetically, grammatically, and morphosyntactically) orientated at a procedurally represented chain of signs in the L1 which also influences efforts to learn a L2. This can be seen when the learner pronounces L2 phonemes just as they are pronounced in the L1, or when the L1 syntax is simply transferred to the L2, or when using lexical items in the L2 with the meaning of the L1.⁴ Consequently, in order to develop linguistic and conceptual fluency in the L2, procedural knowledge (knowing how) has to be acquired so that the normally triggered conceptualizations and expressions of the L1 can be suppressed (though they might never disappear completely). Therefore, it is not sufficient to learn only how the L2 functions in terms of declarative knowledge (knowing what), al-

4 The German verb bekommen (to get) is orthographically very close to the English verb to become, leading some German tourists in anglophone countries to order their meal in a restaurant by asking May I become a beefsteak?

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though the acquisition of declarative knowledge is, of course, a necessary step in the initial phase of L2 learning. It is essential that one learns how speech acts are performed in the L2 for specific purposes or situational configurations in the other society and culture. Textbooks of the communicative approach frequently present rather limited pragmalinguistic contexts, for instance, how to interact in very specific settings, for example, in a restaurant or post office. This approach, while a step in the right direction away from structural and behaviorist L2 teaching and learning methodologies, is clearly deficient, because it relies on highly formalized, sometimes even formulaic speech acts which are dependent on stereotypical roles and ignorant of the underlying cultural context. Furthermore, the communicative situations presented are commonplace, the vocabulary chosen by frequency of use, the language typically studied through written dialogues, and the grammar presented in linear progression (despite the assumed dominance of a situational progression; cf. Neuner and Hunfeld 1993: 91–105). In the overall process of L2 teaching and learning, however, this schematic approach can have its benefits in the early stages to inspire confidence in facilitating communicative behavior in limited pragmatic situations which could be socioculturally contextualized at a later stage when the situation may be revisited. In the limited application, the communicative approach also tends to promote rote learning in terms of vocabulary, genre, phraseology, etc. However, this can be expanded by encouraging explorative learning in an imaginative and playful manner, although a comprehensive understanding of the speech situation is rarely fostered. Only a culturally embedded approach can lead to the acquisition of conceptualizations, frames, genres, and D/discourses that can then be flexibly, creatively, and spontaneously applied to a variety of configurations in the target society and culture. This approach can have a liberating effect on the mind of the learner, as Vygotsky suggests: “As algebra liberates the child from the domination of concrete figures and elevates him to the level of generalizations, the acquisition of foreign language – in its own peculiar way – liberates him from the dependence on concrete linguistic forms and expressions” (Vygotsky 1986: 160). However, Vygotsky’s equating the liberating potential of algebra to that of foreign language is flawed, because algebra plays a much smaller role in the foundational cognitive development of children than the acquisition of the mother tongue does with its social and cultural context and its liberating, yet at the same time structuring and controlling, influence on our mental capacities. The use of figures and algebra is reliant on decontextualized thought which is provided by the L1 and, while this is also the case for the early and intermediate stages of L2 learning, by the advanced stages thought processes can increasingly be carried out in the internalized L2. Whereas the acquisition of the L1 is usage- and construction-based, adult L2 learners have, in contrast to children, already developed cognitive, emotional,

272 | 9 Fostering intercultural competence in the second language classroom and behavioral skills and abilities. Often, the cognitive planning of utterances in the L2 is conceptually influenced by spontaneously arising compositional and formulation patterns of the L1, and for this reason even advanced learners often have problems expressing themselves adequately in the L2. This problem can be traced back to the traditional (and still very influential) approach to foreign language teaching and learning which devotes much of its energy to the task of learning the language in terms of grammar, morpho-syntax, and pronunciation, while neglecting the pragmatic, cultural, and subjective contexts of language use. However, unless students as embodied subjects are also given space to explore how to use the L2 creatively and subjectively in the imagined other cultural and social context, it is likely that they will fall back on conceptualizations and language patterns acquired in the course of learning their L1. These then guide how they use the L2. The inevitable result is that learners commonly employ forms that are contextually inappropriate in that they differ in style, politeness, and register, but also in terms of frames, genres, and Discourses, from those which native speakers of the language might employ (cf. Geis and Harlow 1996: 129).

9.2 Translating and interlanguage The impact of the L1 on the L2 is greatest in oral proficiency. Here, the most important psychological factor is usually taken to be attention to form, which is related to planning time. The more time learners have to plan, the more target-like their production may be. Hence, literate learners may produce much more target-like forms in a writing task for which they have 30 minutes to plan, than in conversation where they must produce language with almost no planning at all (cf. Tarone, Bigelow, and Hansen 2009). Thus, in the initial phases of second language learning, when the L1 is still the dominant tool for thought, learners frequently resort to directly translating between the L1 and L2 to themselves in their minds.⁵ From the learner’s perspective, translating linguistic items from the L2 to the L1 (and vice versa) seems to facilitate a viable approach to trying to make sense of expressions in the L2. It

5 In a strict sense, processes of translation start even earlier still, if one considers Jakobson’s (2000) distinction between intralingual translation (translation within the same language, which can involve rewording or paraphrase), interlingual translation (translation from one language to another), and intersemiotic translation (translation of the verbal sign by a non-verbal sign, for example, music or image). Learners will normally be familiar with intralingual and intersemiotic translation (albeit subconsciously) before they start translating between languages with cognitive effort.

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also marks the starting point for developing both a subjective interlanguage and, albeit in a very limited and fragile manner, the cognitive blending of third spaces between the languages, conceptualizations, and cultures involved. Hence, the transient subjective linguistic constructs are beginning to take position between the native and the other language, although in the early stages, the L1 holds sway over many of the L2 configurations (in terms of grammar, orthography, pronunciation, syntax, morphology, and conceptualization). When beginning to learn a L2, the learner starts to develop a specific subjective interlanguage which is characterized by elements of the learner’s knowledge of the L1, his or her (initially extremely) limited knowledge of the target language, knowledge of the communicative functions of language, knowledge about the system of language in general, and sociocultural knowledge of use of language, such as genres, narratives, and Discourses. On this fragile basis, the learner construes a structured set of rules that, for him or her, explains the system of the target language at a specific stage of the learning process, even if this subjective interlanguage typically is, unbeknown to the learner, highly deficient with regard to the L2 (and possibly the L1, too). However, this deficiency is characteristic of a necessary transitional stage. Rather than seeing interlanguage in terms of deficiency with regard to the informing language systems, it should be treated as an independent system in its own right. On the surface, interlanguage can be understood to be similar to Vygotsky’s concept of inner speech (cf. Section 2.2.3) because it is highly subjective and provides the learner with spontaneously available, albeit subjective and hence potentially deficient information about the L2 (based mainly on the L1); it is also used by the L2 learner to regulate his or her thought processes (in relation to the task at hand). However, interlanguage is different from inner speech in Vygotsky’s sense, because it does not involve fundamental processes of subconscious thinking and self-regulation, as used for coping with everyday situations. By contrast, interlanguage is characterized by conscious attempts to construe lexical and grammatical items of the foreign language, based on internalized items and patterns of the L1. The term interlanguage was coined by Selinker (1972) (sometimes it is also referred to as transitional competence, approximative system, idiosyncractic dialect, interim language, or learner language). The concept of interlanguage refers to “both the internal system that a learner has constructed at a single point in time (‘an interlanguage’) and to the series of interconnected systems that characterize the learner’s progress over time (‘interlanguage’ or the ‘interlanguage continuum’)” (Ellis 1994: 350). Interlanguage can be defined as a succession of highly subjective, constantly ongoing attempts to construct linguistic blended spaces (or interspaces) between elements of the two (or more) language systems involved

274 | 9 Fostering intercultural competence in the second language classroom in order to better comprehend, use, and memorize the different items and structures of the L2. Interlanguage is not so much produced when the learner focuses on grammatical accuracy; rather, a learner’s interlanguage is mainly developed when the learner is focused on the meaning of the message or the communicative intent. It is based on attempts to translate and interrelate lexical, but also syntactical, morphological, phonological, and semantic elements of the languages involved. Typically, learners in the early stages of L2 learning invoke rules from their L1 when trying to produce an utterance in the L2. From this basis, the L2 learner is progressively adjusting the interlanguage system so that it slowly resembles the L2 system. There are four important elements involved in this process: simplification, overgeneralization, restructuring, and U-shaped behavior (cf. Ortega 2009: 116– 118). Simplification is the process used when meaning must be communicated in the second language, knowledge of which at the very early stage of L2 learning may be very limited. Overgeneralization refers to the use of a form or rule in contexts where it applies – but also where it does not apply. Its application can be random or systematic. An example of the systematic overgeneralization is reported by Tarone and Swierzbin (2009: 13) who found that “any of our six learners of English who have correctly learned to form the past tense in English by adding –ed to the verb may occasionally produce the verb *gived.” Here, the learners produce the irregular forms conforming to regular patterns, just as children are doing when negotiating rules for their L1 use (cf. Section 2.1). Restructuring is the cognitive process of self-reorganization of grammatical representations of knowledge; it can involve alterations of knowledge, to a larger or smaller extent, or in an abrupt or gradual manner. Restructuring is always qualitative in character and related to progress or development. However, this does not mean that the process of learning the L2 is linear, and that progression in the development of interlanguage always means increasing accuracy. This can be observed in U-shaped behavior which is a part of restructuring knowledge (cf. Ortega 2009: 118).⁶ Interlanguage is characterized by its systematicity, its instable and transitional character, its dependence on and simultaneous independence from the native and target languages, its variability, its permeability, and its changeability through processes of learning and communication. However, an interlanguage

6 U-shaped behavior is defined by Sharwood Smith and Kellerman (1989: 220, cited in Ortega 2009: 118) as “the appearance of correct, or nativelike, forms at an early stage of development which then undergoes a process of attrition, only to be reestablished at a later stage.” However, as Ortega (2009: 118) points out, the underlying representations of seemingly error-free forms are different, since accuracy in the first phase is largely coincidental but in the later stage relying on internalized linguistic knowledge.

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can easily stabilize or even fossilize due to internal and external factors such as age (loss of plasticity of the brain), lack of desire to acculturate (maintaining one’s L1 identity in L2 situations; cf. Chapter 6), communicative pressure (learner must communicate ideas, overstretching his or her linguistic resources), lack of learning opportunity, and the nature of feedback on learner’s use of L2 (inappropriate positive feedback results in fossilization) (cf. Ellis 1994: 354). Sometimes, however, fossilized interlanguage can be intentionally used like a natural language for communicative purposes and for purposes of indicating one’s aspired social identity, including a habitus resistance against the majority culture. If this happens, one can speak of a pidginization of the interlanguage, for instance, Türkendeutsch, or “Turkspeak” which is popular among young people of Turkish descent in Germany. Fossilization and pidginization of interlanguage can sometimes be interpreted as a kind of defense mechanism, especially in language situations, serving the function of preserving cultural and linguistic group identity (cf. Chapter 6). The initial process of provisional one-to-one translating of words and expressions which is characteristic of early subjective attempts to make sense of L2 constructs is clearly deficient in several respects. The pragmatic context, the force of the utterance (or text), allusions, implications, and connotations may go unnoticed, as do subtle sociocultural differences in conceptualization, metaphors, and frames (cf. Section 8.3). However, before a basic understanding of these complex configurations can be developed, the learner has to rely on the process of, at least partial, translation at initial and intermediate levels of L2 learning in order to make sense of the target language items, their pragmatic context and underlying cultural patterns: For a long time, one continually translates into the original language whatever elements of the new language one is acquiring. Only in this way can the new language begin to have any reality. As this reality comes to be established in its own right, it slowly becomes possible to forgo translation. One becomes capable of “thinking in” the new language. (Berger and Luckmann 1966: 163)

Translating in early L2 learning refers not only to vocabulary, but also to syntax and social forms of L2 use (e.g., frames, genres, D/discourses, etc.). Deficient as it may be, translating seems to be the most efficient path for beginners to understanding aspects of the target language and culture. One example of this technique is provided by in the language learning biography of the Japanese native Chizu Kanada (cited in Schumann 1997: 265–278) who, in her attempts to learn English, initially translates every word of an utterance from Japanese into English before actually saying something in English: “I had been ‘writing’ English sentences in my head. I actually visualized each letter of the alphabet in each

276 | 9 Fostering intercultural competence in the second language classroom word of the sentence I was formulating. I would then check for grammatical errors and, finally, produce it orally” (Kanada, cited in Schumann 1997: 269). This approach might have been sufficient for her English classes in Japan but, when having moved to the U.S. as a visiting student, she encounters an immersion situation in which the emphasis is not so much on grammatical accuracy but on communicative proficiency: “This pre-thinking in Japanese was particularly disadvantageous in the classroom context. I would often find that the discussion had moved on to other subjects by the time I was ready to express my ideas. It was excruciating. My self-esteem was badly hurt” (Kanada, cited in Schumann 1997: 269–270). The change of context from learning English as a foreign language in a decontextualized Japanese classroom with an emphasis on rote learning and pattern drills to an American immersion situation where English becomes the second language with emphasis on communicative proficiency, does not leave time for careful planning of every utterance. This is clearly a distressing situation for Kanada. However, this challenge is met by Kanada by adjusting to the situation, trying to shift her linguistic frame of reference from Japanese to English: It was about the eighth month that I finally started to formulate English sentences without first translating them from Japanese. In other words, I no longer had to have an entire sentence down perfectly before I spoke it, but rather, I became able to speak as I thought. It was as if English finally became a part of my thought processes. (Kanada, cited in Schumann 1997: 269)

Kanada is now able to use English as the language of thought and inner speech which enables her to move away from the constant and arduous task of translating utterances from Japanese to English, thus becoming much more flexible and spontaneous in using English as a communicative medium with others. This gradual shift of language from the L1 to the L2 as a tool for thought and inner speech, however, requires preparedness to risk one’s own self in the process, and it clearly requires a high level of proficiency in the L2. An immersion situation certainly supports this move from the L1 to the L2, as spontaneous use of the L2 is essential for coping with everyday life situations. In the typical L2 classroom, situated in the L1 speech community with relatively homogenous groups of learners, this shift of language is extremely difficult, if at all possible, to achieve because the pressing need to use the L2 in everyday life situations is absent, as may be the preparedness of learners to deeply engage with this school subject (as it is part of the school syllabus which has to be studied, just like all other subjects on the curriculum); frequently, the primary objective is to pass the next test and exam. In this context, the activity of translating often dominates the whole L2 learning process at school, as, for example, a highly motivated student with exceptionally good results in the Irish Junior Certificate

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examinations (taken after three years of foreign language learning at 15 years of age) remarks with regard to learning French: “I found that vocabulary was very important. I practised tape work and built lists of vocabulary to learn. (. . . ) The most important thing for me was to understand as many words as I could” (Irish Times, 3 March 2008: 2, cited in Witte 2009: 89). This translation-based approach to foreign language learning clearly seems sufficient to pass the relevant institutional examinations at this educational level in Ireland. However, it can only be a transitional phase on the path to gradually opening up to elements of the socio-pragmatic context of other constructs in real life situations, and thus to more appropriate L2 use at all levels. This path is not as simple and straightforward as it might as first seem. For instance, Walter Benjamin (2000: 18) famously points out the difficulty of translating even apparently simple lexical equivalents, such as bread, pain and Brot. What they have in common is their grain-based quality as food items; but there are remarkable differences between both cultural connotations and the material product itself. Brot is German for multigrain, wheat- or rye-based bread, with a significantly different taste, texture, and color to French wheat-based pain (for example, baguette) or English bread which typically refers to soft wheat bread. In addition to these material differences, each of these items has culture-specific connotations or “modes of intention (. . . ). [Thus] the word Brot means something different to a German than the word pain to a Frenchman, (. . . ) these words are not interchangeable for them, (. . . ) in fact, they strive to exclude each other” (Benjamin 2000: 18; emphasis in the original). An inclusive translation, therefore, has to translate the intentional modes and the cultural and social contexts, including the habitus, too (cf. Section 8.3). Contextually sensitive translation (and therefore L2 learning) requires more than just linguistic knowledge, namely pragmatic social knowledge and intercultural sensitivity. L2 learners as translators must, according to Simon, “constantly make decisions about the cultural [and pragmatic] meaning which language carries, and evaluate the degree to which the two different worlds they inhabit are ‘the same’. (. . . ) In fact the process of meaning transfer has less to do with finding the cultural inscription of a term than in reconstructing its value” (Simon 1996: 139; emphasis in the original). What this actually means can be demonstrated with a simple example. Learners of Spanish, French, or German with English as a mother tongue might have difficulties in learning and applying appropriately the formal/informal distinction in personal address, since this distinction no longer exists in the English language and socioculture. On the other hand, even monolingual German speakers sometimes have difficulties using the Sie and Du forms appropriately in processes of social indexing, and are usually unaware of the fact that some other languages do not have this distinction. In one of the best-known

278 | 9 Fostering intercultural competence in the second language classroom jokes concerning the former German Chancellor, Helmut Kohl is portrayed as being ignorant of this phenomenon. Upon meeting former US president Ronald Reagan for the first time, he wanted to create a relaxed atmosphere, and therefore told his mighty host “You can say you to me” (cf. Roe 1998: 213). This gesture wouldn’t make sense in English at all, unless it is reconstructed on the basis of the German socio-pragmatic source-context. In order to be able to contextually translate situations and configurations from one language and culture into another, one has to have acquired a high level of competence (linguistic, social, cultural, D/discursive) in both languages and cultures involved. This obviously cannot be the case at the beginning of the L2 learning process. Therefore, it makes sense to distinguish between the concepts of translating as an expression for the mental process, and translation for the accomplished product, as James S. Holmes (2000) has suggested. Translating in this sense refers to the ongoing collaborative and subjective efforts to gain access to the meaning inherent in the L2 expression by translating the L2 text or utterance word-by-word into the L1. By contrast, translation refers to the polished written product which ideally translates not only the text on the linguistic level, but also the cultural context and tacit assumptions in a way that the “translated text should be the site at which a different culture emerges, where a reader gets a glimpse of a cultural other and resistency” (Venuti 1995: 306). Translating attempts to bridge the gaps in meaning that arise when the learner is confronted with the unfamiliar, by subordinating it to the categories of his or her first language; he or she tries to harmonize the “resistency” of the other text or utterance and thus eradicate its otherness. By contrast, translation does not remove this resistency but integrates it into the translation, as based on the intercultural third space: Translation is a process that involves looking for similarities between language and culture – particularly similar messages and formal techniques – but it does this because it is constantly confronting dissimilarities. It can never and should never aim to remove these dissimilarities entirely. (. . . ) A translation strategy based on an aesthetic of discontinuity can best preserve that difference, that otherness, by reminding the reader of the gains and losses in the translation process and the unbridgeable gaps between cultures. (Venuti 1995: 306)

Whereas the production of such a culturally sensitive translation in Venuti’s sense could only be attempted by very advanced and interculturally competent L2 speakers (particularly professional translators who have specialized in the two languages and cultures), the process of translating is firmly rooted in the L1. For translation, the imperialistic annihilation of the Other would be highly unacceptable; for translating, it is the norm. Although clearly deficient on the

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linguistic level, translating should not only be tolerated in the L2 classroom, but actively encouraged in the initial stages of L2 learning. Rather than failing to address naturally occurring acts of translating in the classroom and leaving the learners to their subjective devices, playful co-construction among peers in the L2 classroom could help negotiate meaning and reduce the occurrence of possible mis-constructions. This process can be highly imaginative, for example, where the individual L2 learners compare their translations and choose the best or most original effort (from their point of view, possibly scaffolded by the teacher). Languages represent different ways of constructing the same experience and event through different a “language glass” (cf. Deutscher 2011); in the early L2 classroom it can be highly imaginative and creative to try finding semiotic, semantic, and phonetic similarities and differences between the two systems, thus starting to discover different perspectives on and construals of aspects of “reality.” The teacher, in his or her role as the more knowledgeable other, could help to facilitate and co-ordinate translating-activities but should refrain from interfering unduly in the construction processes, as learners may become less engaged if they do not have ample opportunity to apply their interlanguage constructs to the process. Translating can be fostered in a variety of ways, beginning with the simple and playful translating of isolated words and phrases (while acknowledging that there may be more than one “correct” translation) and comparing the sounds of words and expressions, and then progressing to finding synonyms, antonyms, and homonyms. This procedure can be expanded to include role play, critical incidents, translating games, and the co-operative subtitling of film-snippets (cf. Incalcaterra McLoughlin 2009). Bearing in mind the definitions of translating and translation, translating continues to become less relevant for the cognitive activities of the learner, as he or she will develop increasingly more complex intercultural places in order to move between the constructs of the first and the second language and socioculture. However, the process of translating may never disappear completely and may continue to have an influence on L2 learning on linguistic, conceptual, discursive, pragmatic, and strategic levels for much longer than many of us theoreticians and practitioners would care to admit, or like to see.

9.3 Metaphoric competence Conceptual metaphors are an important, yet frequently untranslatable, instrument of cognition for constructing meaning. Conceptual metaphors are blended spaces; they arise when one domain of experience is conceptualized in terms of another so as to make the subject-matter more accessible for understanding (cf. Section 3.4). Since conceptual metaphors are a fundamental and integral part

280 | 9 Fostering intercultural competence in the second language classroom of language and mind, L2 learners have to develop some degree of metaphoric competence in order to understand L2 metaphorical constructs and use them for appropriately communicating in the target language and generating inferences and predictions. The ability to understand and use metaphors in the L2 is likely to make a substantial contribution to second language proficiency. Some conceptual metaphors may use the same, or similar, systematic mappings between the source domain and the target domain in the L1 and the L2. For instance, in the metaphors to grasp a meaning and eine Bedeutung begreifen (German translation), the verbs to grasp and begreifen use the same mapping from the physical to the abstract domains. While there may be such cross-culturally stable ways of conceptualizing abstract thought in primary conceptual metaphors in terms of basic level categories and superordinate categories, as well as basic image schemata and the spatial conceptualization of abstract categories (e.g., life is a journey, social organizations are plants; cf. Section 3.4), these may be expressed linguistically in different ways so that the mapping-process has to be reconstructed by the L2 learner. Secondary conceptual metaphors, however, are principally culturespecific. In order to consciously understand, use, and create metaphors, one has to have a conceptual grasp of the two domains and levels of meaning involved and, more importantly, of the tacit connections, or mappings, between the concepts combined in a metaphor, especially since metaphor is not necessarily based on similarity. An example of different metaphoric mappings can be found in color metaphors. In the English language, metaphors such as to feel blue or blue movie, are commonly used. However, the understanding of these metaphors relies on cultural background information. The meanings are related to melancholy, and to the color of paper on which laws prohibiting the screening of pornography used to be printed, respectively. If one does not know about these metonymic relationships (which typically is the case), the meanings of these expressions are taken to be as metaphorical (cf. Niemeier 2005: 105). Since these metaphors have not developed in other languages, learners of English have to be aware of the cultural background in order to be able to decipher the meanings in question. The color blue is used metaphorically differently in other languages; for example, in German the statement that someone is blau [blue] means that this person is actually drunk (for further examples, cf. Section 3.4). However, as Pütz and Sicola (2010: 293) point out, the area of metaphoric competence in the L2 and the relationships between mental transfer from L1 metaphoric configurations to the L2 (and vice versa) still requires much more detailed research: “[T]here has been surprisingly little research into the extent to which language learners are able to transfer their metaphor interpretation and production skills (or behaviour patterns) from their mother tongue (L1) to the target language (L2).”

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Due to the high level of complexity of the required linguistic, social, and cultural knowledge of target and source domains, as well as the systematic mappings between them, it has been assumed that children acquire metaphoric competence relatively late in their socialization. This, however, may be a wrong assumption as Gibbs (1994) suggests: The evidence from developmental psychology does not support the traditional idea that the ability to use and understand figurative language develops late. Instead, young children possess significant ability to think in figurative terms as long as they possess the domain-specific knowledge needed to solve problems and understand linguistic expressions. Development of figurative language understanding may have more to do with the acquisition of various metacognitive and metalinguistic skills than with development of the ability to think figuratively per se. (. . . ) Although figurative thinking has its limitations for both children and adults, it seems abundantly clear that young children have some ability to think figuratively and do so spontaneously and without undue effort. (Gibbs 1994: 433)

In tandem with acquiring language and concepts in general, children learn to understand and use conceptual metaphors by incidental learning, casual use, and implicit construction, rather than by receiving explicit instruction from others for the inherent mapping potential. Once metacognitive and metalinguistic skills have developed, normally by the time the written form of the L1 is learned, primary and secondary conceptual metaphors are used effortlessly by children.⁷ Younger children, however, sometimes require scaffolding by more knowledgeable others in terms of the mappings used by the metaphor because they may not have an adequate understanding of the source domain or the source-target correspondences (cf. Cameron 2003). Fauconnier and Turner (2002: 389) suggest that young children spend hours trying to work out connections between conceptual spaces that adults find obvious; they tend to focus on the relevant material anchors, whereas adults’ attention is focused on running the blend. Thus, “children are born into a world richly structured by complex, cultural conceptual blends, many of which they must master to function in society” (Fauconnier and Turner 2002: 390). Children are obviously in a position to internalize culturally developed and maintained conceptual blends, just as they internalize linguistic features, namely by participation in a myriad of processes of incidental and spontaneous mimicking, copying, and taking on the roles of others, be it in play or in social (inter-)action. Many of these conceptual blends and metaphoric mappings are

7 An exception in this context is the use of pseudoconcepts which children do not yet fully understand, but use them nevertheless due to reliance of their utterance on external speech (cf. Section 2.2.2).

282 | 9 Fostering intercultural competence in the second language classroom acquired in an unconscious and automated manner so that they only become explicit when being confronted with other systems of blends and mappings. Due to the previous development of these skills in the L1, the L2 learner in school should also be in a position to basically understand and use primary conceptual metaphors in the L2, for instance, the metaphor to grasp (or begreifen), the meaning of an expression or event (cf. Section 3.4). However, the culture-specific domains and mappings make the endeavor of teaching and learning secondary conceptual metaphors very difficult, to the extent that some applied linguists suggest that “there is little value in trying to develop a pedagogical program for teaching metaphorically organized conceptual knowledge if such knowledge in an L2 is unlearnable in the first place” (Valeva 1996: 36, cited in Lantolf and Thorne 2006: 118). Stern (2000: 203; emphasis in the original) is equally pessimistic, because the L2 learner “may not know that some utterance is not to be interpreted literally but not yet know what it is to interpret it metaphorically.” According to Stern (2000: 203–204), the L2 learner may not have the specific vocabulary, or he or she may not know the mapping-potential of the culture and language in which the metaphor is expressed. Consequently, he or she cannot develop metaphoric competence in the L2. Other academics, such as Danesi (1992), are of the opinion that conceptual metaphoric knowledge can be taught and learned in the L2 classroom setting if appropriate materials and pedagogical practices are available. Danesi (1992) rightly suggests that, “students do not develop MC [Metaphoric Competence] by osmosis. It would seem that metaphoric competence, like grammatical and communicative competence, must be extracted from the continuum of discourse and held up for students to study and practice in ways that are similar to how we teach them grammar and communication” (Danesi 1992: 497). The findings of Hashemian’s and Nezhad’s empirical study (2006) seem to corroborate Danesi’s assumption that metaphoric competence is learnable in a systematic fashion. However, this cannot be achieved by a specifically developed program for acquiring metaphoric competence, but metaphors can instead be explicitly discussed in an integrated manner as they arise in the learning process. Understanding metaphoric mappings does not automatically lead to the appropriate use of metaphors in the L2. Pütz and Sicola (2010: 307) conducted a study in metaphoric construction of English learners of French and concluded that “metaphoric competence must not be seen as a homogeneous trait. Rather, it is, to some extent, a multifaceted entity, and a student can, for example, be good at finding the meaning in metaphor fairly quickly, but not good at producing multiple interpretations.” The productive potential of multifarious meaning by metaphors clearly has to be given more room for reflection and creative application in the L2 classroom, including the restructuring of linguistic and cultural knowledge in the minds of L2 learners.

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Kövecses (2001: 113) gives an indication of what would be needed to effectively teach metaphoric and idiomatic competence in the L2 classroom. He suggests that one should use mainly primary conceptual metaphors relating to the human body. Secondly, he proposes the creation of a dictionary of metaphoric idioms whose arrangement should ideally “follow the presumed conceptual organization of idioms; it should indicate the target domain, the source domain, and the scope of the source domain for the idioms that are based on a particular metaphor source” (Kövecses 2001: 113). Thirdly, this dictionary should indicate the general, specific, and connotative meaning “which should all be indicated in giving the meaning of these idioms; these meanings depend on the relevant mapping(s) between a source and a target” (Kövecses 2001: 113). And finally, given a shared conceptual metaphor in two languages, the general differences between idioms across languages can basically be of three kinds (same literal meanings, same metaphor; different literal meanings, same metaphor; different literal meanings, different metaphors), all with different potentials for the learning of idioms in FLT [Foreign Language Teaching]; however, it’s been also emphasized that these different learning potentials should be considered as merely speculative until we have experimental evidence to support them. (Kövecses 2001: 113)

Kövecses seems to have in mind a traditional instructivist learning paradigm, operating with dictionaries and the dominant figure of the teacher. If, however, his suggestions were to be applied in a constructionist-developmental classroom where the teacher acts as the more knowledgeable person and as the facilitator of a collaborative community of enquiry in the classroom in a situation in which individual students could take a shared, active, and reflective role in the development of their own potential for metaphoric (and other) constructing, the production of a “dictionary” of metaphorical expressions by the learners could stimulate fruitful comparisons between the mappings of metaphors of the L2 and similar metaphors in the L1, bearing in mind the heteroglossia inherent in language. The “dictionary” of metaphorical expressions cannot relate to isolated metaphors but has to include some of the Discursive examples of metaphor use, given the difference in culturally contextualized experiences and interactions. Primary conceptual metaphors can foster an understanding, not only of similarities on the semantic level, but also of the use of domains in metaphors. These discoveries could lead, over time, to the development of metaphorical competence as an integral part of linguistic, communicative, Discursive, and intercultural competences. However, teaching and learning metaphorical competence in the L2 would require, in addition to enthusiastic, well-trained, and competent teachers producing and presenting stimulating materials tailored to the needs of their learners, a lot of extra time and effort in a typically already overburdened L2 classroom.

284 | 9 Fostering intercultural competence in the second language classroom Therefore, Lantolf’s and Thorne’s (2006) conclusion of their discussion on the teachability and learnability of conceptual metaphors seems convincing: “The research to date does not provide much evidence in support of the idea that conceptual metaphors are learnable” (Lantolf and Thorne 2006: 123). This, however, may be too sweeping a statement. The reflections of Danesi (1992) and Kövecses (2001) suggest that at least some aspects of conceptual metaphors are teachable and learnable and these can be developed over time towards metaphorical competence in the L2. However, this should be done in an integrated manner in the L2 classroom in cases where they arise,⁸ and an awareness of them may contribute to the overall understanding of the situation, text, or utterance, including affective and behavioral aspects. It is easy for the teacher to move discussions of metaphors to a more general level of language awareness sessions and instigate discussions where learners become aware of the underlying domains of mappings (for example, argument is war) and playfully develop new metaphors in the L2. Since conceptual metaphors are anchored in sociocultural activities of construction, it may be a useful exercise to reconstruct the differences in these activities between the two (or more) cultures involved with the aim of furthering an awareness of the cultural and linguistic processes of construction. In these kinds of activity, learners engage actively with both languages and cultures, reflect on the differences and similarities between them, and work purposefully on tasks using the L2 in imaginative ways. The notion of metaphoric competence implies more than just being aware of metaphorically constructed meaning and its analysis; it is more than just knowing about metaphor. As Low (2008: 221; emphasis in the original) points out, “learning, for example, that ‘run up a flag’, ‘run up a bill’, or ‘run up an election’ are metaphoric, or knowing that love is a journey has numerous exponents in English will not per se improve your ability to use metaphoric expressions effectively as a speaker.” Metaphorical competence implies the ability to adequately understand and appropriately produce metaphors in the use of language. The term competence in this context alludes to the concept of communicative competence which comprises of four components: linguistic, sociolinguistic (contextual appropriateness), discourse, and strategic (cf. Section 5.2.1). Metaphor skills involve all four components and thus these components have to be acquired by learners.

8 Cameron (2003: 268) suggests that it is necessary to distinguish between conventionalized and deliberately deployed metaphors. Conventionalized metaphors do not always have to be discussed as they may not pose a problem for conceptual understanding because they are known from the L1. If they are problematic, Cameron suggests that “they best be learnt as vocabulary” (Cameron 2003: 270).

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This has implications for mediating metaphor knowledge in the L2 classroom, because metaphorically competent learners must be (1) linguistically able to abstract metaphor from a conversational topic, (2) sociolinguistically able to use their knowledge of the target culture to guess what is implied in the metaphor (be it in receptive or productive use), (3) discursively aware of the reason for metaphor use and its implications for the unfolding discourse (e.g., sarcastic, friendly, humorous); and (4) strategically aware of the communicative aims of the use of metaphor in the discourse. This comprehensive metaphoric competence is typically used in the L2 classroom first receptively, i.e., the learners will have to cope with metaphors they encounter in the L2, before being able to expand on this basis and develop metaphoric competence for appropriate productive use in the L2. This implies a contextual-constructionist approach to teaching and learning which relies, not on dictionaries of conceptual metaphors and idioms, but on the enthusiasm and creativity of learners and teachers, as well as on stimulating and interactive learning materials. The intercultural classroom provides the opportunities for opening up spaces of possibility which the learners can subjectively and collectively occupy in transient activities of critical reflection, language play, metaphoric mapping, conceptual blending, and creative writing. Teaching and learning is orientated, not so much towards linguistic facts, but towards semiotic relations between words, metaphors, and concepts within and between the languages at hand.

9.4 Efforts of stabilizing linguistic and sociocultural context 9.4.1 Conceptual In addition to linguistic means of stabilizing context (words, sentences, utterances, texts), there are also conceptual devices such as frames, schemata, prototypes, and stereotypes, as discussed in detail in Sections 3.1 and 3.2. These devices refer to different levels of conceptualization, as frames and schemata can conceptualize very broad strands of knowledge, whereas prototypes and stereotypes are narrower in their function of structuring conceptual knowledge. But as with the sociolinguistic structuring-devices of Discourse, genre, and speech genre (cf. Chapter 4), the conceptual means of frame, schema, prototype, and stereotype are not completely fixed or stable. They can only provide relatively stable constructs of context (cf. Bakhtin 1986: 60; Section 5.3), thus leaving the subject with ample room for maneuver in cognitive, as well as emotional and behavioral domains. And like the former, the latter are also created and maintained in a particular cultural and social context; they are culture-specific.

286 | 9 Fostering intercultural competence in the second language classroom The culture-specificity of concepts has been researched for prototypes in cognitive linguistics (e.g., Ungerer and Schmid 1996; Lakoff 1987; Rosch 1983; Taylor 1989), with the result that there are significant cultural differences as to the definition of best samples of prototypes, but also of peripherally acceptable types. For instance, the definition of what is or is not a cup varies considerably across cultures, especially for the peripheral regions of the concept, but also sometimes for focal regions (cf. Labov 1973: 354). This is hardly surprising; research by Barsalou (1993; cf. Section 3.2) has shown that prototypes are not stable mental representations (within a cultural community), but that they are created in specific contexts and for specific purposes, whereby certain aspects of the “family resemblance” (Wittgenstein; cf. Section 3.2) of the prototype may be accentuated. Since prototypes are not stable mental constructs, they can be challenged and contested between people, for instance, concepts of democracy, freedom, nationalism, liberalism, sexuality, and many others. In contrast to the rather narrow conceptual field of prototypes, frames (or ICMs) can be seen as structured mental representations of an area of human experience which are shared between the members of a cultural community. The category of frame is a broader configuration than that of prototype because it includes a large amount of underlying linguistic, pragmatic, social, and cultural knowledge that is activated when a concept is mentioned. Frames do not only refer to knowledge represented in single lexical items, but can consist of a number of words, expressions, or phrases, designating a coherent organization of human experience within a culture. Therefore, frames constitute a very complex system of knowledge about self, Other, and world. Frames have a conceptual as well as a cultural dimension, as exemplified with the frame mother in Section 3.1, which principally contributes to the greater difficulty of their intercultural construction: “The knowledge we have about the world is given to us in highly schematic, or idealized, form: in frames. Frames capture our prototypes for conceptual categories. They are cultural products shared by smaller or larger groups of people. (. . . ) One extremely important feature of frames is that they help us to account for multiple understandings of the same situation” (Kövecses 2006: 329). What makes frames sometimes difficult to use in a cross-cultural context are not only the differences in cultural construal,⁹ but also minimal differences in terms of the linguistic form they contain. For example, the English sentence The

9 As was shown in Section 3.1, the semantic differentiation of some concepts is not lexically available in some languages and cultures, such as in the terms mother or father which are much narrower construed in the European than in the Asian context, or the English terms coast and shore which are unavailable in German.

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birds are sitting in the tree conceptualizes the tree as a closed entity which is entered by the birds, hence they are contained in the tree. By contrast, the equivalent frame in German is Die Vögel sitzen auf dem Baum [The birds are sitting on the tree]. Here, the difference in prepositions points to a cultural construal of the tree as an object that is not entered by the birds, no matter where in the tree they may be located, as the birds are sitting on it; the tree is thus seen not as an entity, but construed in more detail as having branches and leaves, and the birds are hence sitting on the branches of the tree, or on the tree.¹⁰ These minimal crosscultural differences in framing make the creative and communicative use of these frames difficult to apply in the L2, as the dominance of L1 conceptualizations will most likely spontaneously infer the internalized “normal” use of the preposition on from a German point of view, and in from an English speaker’s perspective. These minimal differences in the construction and automated application of frames are not only typical for cross-cultural encounters, but also occur in intracultural situations. In the following two sentences this difference is also expressed by the preposition. “The children played on the bus. The children played in the bus.” (Kövecses 2006: 297; italics in the original)

In the first sentence, a situation is portrayed in which the bus was moving and the children who were traveling on it were playing. By contrast, the second sentence typically describes a situation in which the bus is permanently stationary (for example, in a junk yard) and the children were playing in it. Like in the crosscultural example of the birds in or on the tree, differences in interpretation are signaled by the minimal difference of the prepositions on and in. For learners of English as a L2, the difference in framing the children on or in the bus is not necessarily obvious, as many languages do not make this kind of distinction in this particular frame.¹¹ Frames, however, are not derived from linguistic categories, but linguistic categories are employed to express certain conceptual frames. Whereas the abovementioned examples refer to differences in construal, as expressed by different

10 If one wants to express the location of the birds in the tree more precisely in German, one would use the frame Die Vögel sitzen auf dem Ast des Baumes [The birds are sitting on the branch of the tree]. 11 For instance, in German the preposition auf [on] would imply that the children were playing on top, i.e., on the roof, of the bus.

288 | 9 Fostering intercultural competence in the second language classroom prepositions, intercultural errors in terms of inappropriate behavior, arising out of the application of a wrong frame in the social domain are more complex. In L2 learning, learners should become aware of the differences (or similarities) in frames between the two (or more) cultures. However, the situations and frames discussed (and ideally played out) in the L2 classroom can only be selective; they also should be aimed at the level of experiences and interests relevant for the learners. A dictionary of frames, similar to the one suggested by Kövecses (2001) for metaphorical idioms (cf. Section 9.2), would be impossible to produce because of the overwhelming complexity of social situations and cultural differences. Therefore, frames should be discussed only when they actually arise in the L2 class and if they can contribute to the efforts of construal on the part of the L2 learners. Schemata have a similarly structuring and automatizing function for constructing certain aspects of life with the purpose of saving deliberate effort of construal in dealing with complex everyday situations. Section 3.2 introduced the difference between personal and cultural schemata. Whereas the former rely on a combination of personal experiences and sociocultural concepts, the latter refer to the conventionally constructed and distributed cognitive resources of a cultural community. Some cultural schemata, though culture-specific in their construction, can be similar between some cultures (for instance, Western schemata relating to love, death, modes of transport, spheres of law, finance and business, etc.), while others may be non-transferable (for example, forms of politeness, formulae of greeting and address, etc.). Schemata may also harden to stereotypes, and these can (and should) be discussed in the L2 classroom because of their potentially durable risk of misrepresentation, which can have an impact on subjective attempts of intercultural construal. Stereotypes are socially and discursively constructed and serve, like frames and schemata, as an orientation in an otherwise chaotic world. However, stereotypes can gain the status of an independent and sometimes prescriptive reality. Auto- and hetero-stereotypes are clichéd and thus do no justice to individual members of the social groups they refer to; in both instances they serve to preserve the identity of one’s own social group at the expense of another. This social function of stereotypes should be made explicit in the L2 classroom, not by just discussing stereotypes cognitively, but also by making use of the affective force inherent in stereotypes (cf. Section 10.2). This could be done by focusing first on auto-stereotypes in which learners might find themselves seriously misrepresented, for example, the Irish as drunken dimwits, Germans as humorless Nazis, French as love-crazy, etc. The innermost feelings of injustice experienced by learners as members of the group being stereotyped in these instances could then be transferred to the same learners empathizing with and deconstructing

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the affective force of hetero-stereotypes. However, the objective of such a learning sequence cannot be the deconstruction of every stereotype in the mind of the individual learner. Rather, the goal is to sensitize learners to the simplified, clichéd, and misrepresenting character of stereotypes. Prototypes, frames, schemata, and stereotypes are discursively produced by members of a cultural community in a historical dimension. They are internalized during the process of socialization and lingualization, hence they are not normally challenged, but taken for granted. However, by being confronted with other forms of organizing social and physical realities when starting to learn a L2, the conceptual means of structuring perception and construction begin to lose their validity. The process of becoming aware of and trying to reconstruct the prototypes, frames, schemata, and stereotypes contained in the L2 is not smooth, but difficult and fractured. It cannot be restricted to the cognitive level of learning alone, but must also embrace the affective and behavioral levels, as we have seen with the example of stereotypes. Therefore, explorative, multi-perspective, experientially-based, and collaborative learning activities can enable the learner to get a grasp of alternative ways of constructing a viable “reality,” and even possible worlds. This cannot, of course, be done in a comprehensive manner in the L2 classroom, not even through the use of dictionaries of idiomatic metaphorical expressions. The goal, therefore, has to be for learners to become aware of these differences and sensitize them in their language use for potential alternatives of construal. The locus of subjective negotiation of the differences with the aim of turning it into a creative category for subjective cognition, emotion, and behavior is the intercultural third space in which the cultural differences of the L1 and L2 differences are blended by the mind of the learner.

9.4.2 Sociolinguistic The notion of context in interaction refers not only to the physical surroundings; it is also constantly co-constructed by participants while interacting from the perspective of their positionings and in reaction to the immediate force of the utterances, based on their acquired pragmatic, linguistic, D/discursive, social, and cultural competences (cf. Section 4.5). However, this immediate communicative context is not always completely novel and unstructured. People who have known one another for a long time can allude to certain incidents, experiences, or memories in their history of interaction in the sense of contextualization cues which do not have to be made explicit. In a broader sense, habitualization of frequently performed activities can lead to the social formation of certain patterns of action and interaction which help to stabilize the context for interlocutors in terms

290 | 9 Fostering intercultural competence in the second language classroom of content, style, and compositional structure, once they are indicated and recognized. These stabilizing mechanisms are genre, speech genre, narrative, and D/discourse (cf. Chapter 4) which, although different in their detail, create “effects of reality and truth, authority and plausibility” (Frow 2005: 2), not only for the subject, but also for the speech community. However, these effects are not fixed, since utterances and texts may not belong to specific genres or D/discourses per se, but may make use of them to different degrees. Foucault (cf. Section 4.5) emphasizes the heterogeneity of the discursive formation which is made up, in addition to language, of bodies, speakers, organized space, actions, beliefs, norms, values, and institutions. Therefore, Bakhtin (1986: 52) defines genre and speech genre as “relatively stable types” of interaction which have the potential to make certain utterances, texts, and contexts recognizable and predictable, hence contributing to a smooth intersubjective understanding of the potentially heterogeneous text and utterance without unduly fixing interactional exchange, as the conduit metaphor of communication might suggest (cf. Chapter 5). Discourses, narratives, genres, and speech genres thus provide relatively stable ways of coordinating with other people, places, times, and identities through the structured use of language. However, within genre, speech genre, narrative, and D/discourse, the subject has a degree of room for maneuver, as he or she usually does not completely determine, but only influences what is being communicated. In addition, competing D/discursive practices exist in society, and the subject typically participates in several strands of D/discourses, genres, and speech genres. Each genre or discursive event has basically three dimensions: it is a spoken utterance or written text of language, it is an instance of Discursive practice, and it is an integral part of social practice, based on cultural patterns of construction (cf. Fairclough 1995: 135). In order to become a stakeholder in a speech genre, genre, narrative, or Discourse, the subject has to take up a certain position within this configuration, so that others can interpret the contextualization cues he or she uses, and react by positioning themselves accordingly. As suggested in Section 4.5, the subject’s positioning cannot actively be done by him or her to a full extent because it depends on the degree of subjective availability of D/discourse and genre (linguistic and otherwise) to him or her. Therefore, the subject is positioned (in the passive) as much as he or she positions his or her self (in the active). Once people have taken up a subject position within a Discourse and genre, they have available a particular, albeit limited, set of concepts, images, metaphors, ways of speaking, self-narratives, and so on that they adapt and take as their own (cf. Burr 1998: 145). Because of their structuring social and textual function, genres and D/discourses demand certain behavioral and speech requirements from the interact-

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ants. Therefore, genres and D/discourses are acquired contextually in the processes of socialization, lingualization, and enculturation, as Halliday suggests: This does not happen by instruction, at least not in pre-school years; nobody teaches him the principles on which social groups are organized, or their systems of beliefs, nor would he understand if they tried. It happens indirectly, through the accumulated experience of numerous small events, insignificant in themselves, in which his behaviour is guided and controlled, and in the course of which he contracts and develops personal relationships of all kinds. All this takes place through the medium of language. (Halliday 1978: 9)

Children, through participation in the activities that constitute everyday life, and in the interactions that structure them, incidentally encounter and internalize semiotically mediated mental activities such as classifying and reasoning. These become increasingly habitualized and are enacted, and thus reinforced, by constant participation in everyday life. The internalized implicit knowledge of how to interact and move in certain genres and D/discourses is made explicit when children learn the written form of language in school during their secondary socialization (cf. Section 2.4). For example, with the separation of the learning process into markedly different subjects, pupils learn about the specific Discourses of biology, history, geography, chemistry, etc. In addition, “students are taught how to perform such genres as the essay, the multiple-choice exam, the classroom discussion, the debate; and they learn through explicit metacommentary about certain privileged genres such as those of literature or film” (Frow 2005: 140). In this manner, pupils are initiated into certain ways of constructing and dealing with experience, first by genre as medium of instruction (in the wider sense), and subsequently by analyzing genre as an object. In the school subject (and genre) of literature, for instance, pupils are taught the differences between drama, prose, and poetry as different ways of organizing texts, which they analyze and comment upon. Although the genre of literature may be cross-culturally valid, foreign literary texts are products of another social, cultural, and discursive system which present or represent experiences and conflicts relevant for the foreign society and culture. Thus, framing devices such as genres, narratives, and D/discourses can ease the access to products, structures, and patterns of the other language and socioculture, but the analysis of content and reasons for constructing similar features in a different way has to be executed from the emic (or insiders’) basis of the L2 and its socioculture in a relational manner to the compatible constructs of the L1 and its socioculture, i.e. involving evolving intercultural blended spaces. Genres, narratives, and D/discourses can have a stabilizing function across cultures. This is particularly true in the sciences, but also in domains of economics and finance which operate increasingly on a global level; it can also be the

292 | 9 Fostering intercultural competence in the second language classroom case in more narrow professional contexts, for example, in sports, schooling, or academia, but also among car mechanics, bakers, builders, carpenters, lawyers, accountants, etc. However, this may be true only to a certain degree. While in the European context, many of these genres and Discourses are institutionally and legally coordinated by the European Union, and are similarly composed in other Western cultures, they may be different, or in certain instances even non-existent, in culturally distant regions and societies. For example, car mechanics in Africa will be engaged in a similar professional Discourse and genre to their colleagues in Europe or Asia because the subject-matter (the car or parts thereof) imposes similar requirements on them. However, juju priests or juju doctors whose practices are based on a specific belief in witchcraft are not bound in a global Discourse, because their professions are located only within regionally valid Discourses and genres (where people believe in “black magic”). Dog parlors are another example; they are popular in some parts of the Western world but generally unheard of elsewhere. This is due to the difference in value attached to a pet or, more generally, to animals; the anthropomorphization (or humanizing) of pets is not universal. For the L2 classroom, Discourse, narrative, genre, and speech genre can be made fruitful, not only in terms of stabilizing context for communication, but also for creating an awareness of intracultural genres, narratives, and Discourses, including inherent activities of positioning. On this basis, similarities and crossdifferences between Discourses, genres, and speech genres can be discovered and analyzed. However, this approach presumes a certain familiarity with the notions of genre, speech genre, and Discourse. Guiding stimuli for such activities could be the following guiding questions, which try to activate the exploration and analysis of the construction of meanings, activities, identities (positionings), relationships, politics, and textual connections of D/discourses or texts in relation to a L2 situation discussed in class (cf. Gee 2005: 110; Hacking 2000): 1. What situated meanings and values seem to be attached to places, times, people, objects, and institutions relevant in this situation? 2. What models of Discourse, speech genre, or genre seem to be at play in connecting and integrating these situated meanings to each other? 3. What is the main activity (or set of activities) going on in the situation? 4. What actions and operations make up this activity (or these activities) (cf. Section 5.3)? 5. What identities (roles, or positionings), with their concomitant personal, social, and cultural knowledge and beliefs (cognition), feelings, and values seem to be relevant to, taken for granted in, or under construction in the situation? 6. How are these identities performed and stabilized (or transformed) in the situation?

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10. 11. 12.

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What sort of social relationships seem to be relevant to, taken for granted in, or under construction in the situation? How are these social relationships stabilized and/or transformed in the situation? What social indicators (e.g., status, power, gender, and class, or more narrowly defined social networks and identities) are relevant (and irrelevant) in this situation? In what ways are they made relevant (and/or irrelevant)? What sorts of connections – looking backward and/or forward – are made within and across utterances and large stretches of the interaction? What sorts of connections are made to previous or future interactions, to other people, ideas, things, institutions, and Discourses outside the current situation? What social languages are relevant (or irrelevant) in the situation? How are they made relevant (and irrelevant)?

This set of guiding questions for analyzing D/discourse and genre has, of course, to be narrowed down (or expanded) to the particular needs of the learners and materials available for the L2 learning process. It would be difficult to apply these questions in their totality to any learning sequence. They are meant to provide possible indicators as to how to approach certain aspects of Discourse and genre, with the result that some questions are more relevant than others. Some of these guiding questions can be used for the analysis of texts and utterances, but also to create a generic and discursive awareness of the creative production of texts and utterances in the L2 classroom. Interactive configurations such as role play and simulation games (cf. Chapter 10) can foster a playful awareness of the differences and similarities of related genres and Discourses in the L1 and the L2, especially with regard to potential subjective positionings in Discourse, narrative, genre, and speech genre. The roles, or positionings, can be imaginatively played out by the learners, also by intentionally violating their norms. Reasons for violation and adherence to the generic or discursive requirements can then be picked out as a theme for analysis, which may lead to a deeper understanding of these generic devices.

9.5 Learning culture in the zone of proximal development Culture, as was discussed in Chapter 7, is a very comprehensive and elusive concept. On the one hand, it is difficult to pin down because it is highly dynamic, complex, context-dependent, multi-layered, and multi-faceted, and on

294 | 9 Fostering intercultural competence in the second language classroom the other hand, it can be used as an instrument to construct similarities and essences where there are none. Culture, understood in a culturalist manner, has the tendency to harmonize (up to the point of ignoring) inherent inner tensions and contradictions. It tends to promote determinism and reductionism which can lead to a regression from cultural to ethnic (and at worst biological-racial) reasonings, and it tends to lack empirical correctives and thus cannot eliminate the danger of stabilizing stereotypes of the Other (cf. Chapter 7). Due to the shortcomings of essentialist concepts of culture, some academics do not use the concept of culture any more (e.g., Hess 1992; Altmayer 2004). Altmayer (2009: 126), for example, posits that the concept of culture is outdated, improper, and even dangerous. In its place he suggests using the concept of “cultural patterns of interpretation” (kulturelle Deutungsmuster) which, based on the theories of Max Weber and Alfred Schütz, is much more flexible and socially appropriate, because it emphasizes the socially and subjectively constructed and interpreted “reality” which informs culture in a dialectical manner. However, it does not completely abandon the concept of culture, even if it reduces it to the status of an adjective. But what is certainly necessary is to move away from outdated culturalist concepts and to embrace constructionist concepts of culture, understood as a system of knowledge distributed between subjects (cf. Chapter 7). In addition, an expanded concept of culture differentiates between regional, particular, micro, and special cultures which are not necessarily bound to specific geographically definable territories. These de-territorialized concepts of cultures lend themselves to building bridges between territorialized cultures. For example, in institutional L2 teaching and learning, young people are familiar with the youth culture in their own speech community, and are usually interested in learning about how their peers in other cultures go about their lives. In the age of globalization, young people tend to have similar interests and idols; the specific cultural contexts, however, might differ vastly. As was discussed in Chapter 7, culture could not exist without language, and language could not exist as a refined semiotic system without culture. All human sense-making as well as intra- and intercultural interaction is tied to and mediated through language (cf. Göller 2000: 330). This close interrelation of culture and language has repercussions for L2 teaching and learning. In this context, one has to think about cultures in the plural, because at least two cultures are involved: the source and the target cultures. By engaging with the conceptualizations, norms, attitudes, and values of another culture, the corresponding conceptualizations, norms, attitudes, and values of the source culture become explicit. Seen from this angle, cultures are ascribed similarities and differences constructed in the process of active differentiation from one another by people moving in two (or more) cultures. This approach, however, implies that one also has to consider the complex

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relationships and interplay between cultures, or more precisely, between corresponding elements and configurations of the cultures involved – or even categories that refuse to become conceptualized as cross-culturally valid (e.g., juju, as discussed above). The subjective L2 learner, as well as the group of learners, also has to come into focus, as they are the people who will subjectively negotiate this interplay of languages and cultures by embarking on a journey away from hitherto taken-for-granted monocultural conceptualizations, values, beliefs, attitudes, and norms towards ever shifting intercultural third places. Learning does not take place in a vacuum, but is anchored in the cultural traditions and social practices in that a learner engages; it is also situated within the body of the learner which “does not respond directly to input or impulses from the outside, but to idealized representations that it has constructed within itself over time” (Kramsch 2009a: 75). Since culture manifests itself in language, the two cannot be separated in interaction, be it intra- or intercultural; both aspects of social life have to be treated as one in the process of learning a second language (and culture). An artificial separation of the two would lead to essentialized and de-contextualized portrayals of aspects of culture in the sense of Landeskunde, Civilization, or Cultural Studies that only accompany the process of learning the L2. In addition, this procedure would also create the wrong impression on the part of students that language and culture can be separated. An integrated approach to teaching and learning which treats language as a manifestation of culture can avoid these pitfalls. Culture, especially patterns of tacit cultural knowledge, has to receive its fair share of attention in the L2 learning process. This does not mean that emphasis cannot be laid on specific aspects of language or culture at times, but the overall approach should guarantee a balanced and integrated presence of culture in the language-learning materials and processes. Therefore, learners of a L2 need to successively re-construct and negotiate the underlying cognitive schemata, conceptual metaphors, socialization patterns, conversational styles, and dominant ideologies found in both (or more) speech communities. Learners can develop an understanding of these aspects of the other culture not only by cognitively analyzing linguistic materials but, more importantly, by collaborative negotiation for meaning and by acting them out in the classroom (and beyond) by means of role plays, games, playful performances, etc. This would provide a broader basis for the collaborative negotiation for meaning among peers in terms of involving emotions and the body with the effect of sustained yield for the subjective learning process. However, even this integrated and co-constructive approach to learning cultural facets of the L2 community falls short of how dynamic intercultural L2 learning efforts could develop a progressive cognitive and emotional approximation of the other cultural constructs, because it still operates with stable

296 | 9 Fostering intercultural competence in the second language classroom definitions of cultural configurations, for example, cognitive schemata. Therefore, this approach does not make appropriate use of the hybrid, blended conceptual spaces, code-/culture-switches by L2 learners, of their dynamic interlanguage and untranslatable epistemic and affective positionings which increasingly develop in the course of actively engaging with the other language and culture. Here, Kramsch’s (2009a) notion of symbolic competence, which emphasizes the fact that all these elements are symbolically mediated, and not directly experienced in the L2 classroom, is relevant. Meaningful learning of cultural patterns is only possible from this metaphorical position in-between which symbolically challenges the authority of the dominant discourses and develops new fragile constructs from this blended space (cf. Section 9.6). As a consequence, this kind of intercultural approach to mediating language and culture in the classroom cannot be based on the traditional instructivist teaching paradigm and on a teacher-centered learning process, but has to be developed collectively and co-constructively with the particular group of learners at their own pace and according to their own interests. Rather than putting emphasis on the predefined quantity of what is to be taught and learned (which is characteristic of the instructivist approach operating with fixed curricula and “reliable” instruments measuring the “progress” of learners), the constructionistintercultural approach places the learner and his or her needs with regard to the learning process at the center of its considerations. This may run counter to the requirements of testing and examining a superficial “learning progress,” demanded by the school as a socially selective institution, but fosters a more meaningful learning experience and a more sustainable learning effect on the students (cf. Section 10.3). The constructionist approach does not focus on testing the state of knowledge or development that has already been attained, but is forward-looking in that it provides a nuanced determination of the development achieved and the potential for subjective development in order to provide tailored scaffolding to the group of learners, as well as to the individual. Meaningful learning is not an exercise to fulfill abstract demands of curricula, but is the creative transfer and subjective negotiation of knowledge, skills, and abilities which can be constructively applied in diverse situations. Purely cognitive teaching and learning is ineffective, because students do not test its relevance in relation to their personal constructs of the world and its practical application in action (cf. Wells 1999: 90). By contrast, collaborative construction of knowledge makes use of the hybrid spaces by challenging the learners themselves “to analyze and interpret, find connections, and discover patterns in cultural contexts and relate their results to their own subjective stance” (Kramsch 2009b: 232). Rather than being superficially involved in “learning” prescribed knowledge which is authoritatively mediated by the teacher, the constructionist approach

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places the responsibility for learning on the learners’ shoulders. Learners cannot stand idly by and let the facts and figures go over their heads. On the contrary, learners have to be prepared to apply themselves to the process of learning and negotiating for learning, and risk deep change.¹² Therefore, L2 learning also has repercussions for one’s psychological constructs, including that of personal, social, and cultural identity (cf. Chapter 6). This makes it very difficult to develop a general analytical framework for predicting specific learning outcomes, as Lantolf explains: The reason we cannot predetermine what learners will and will not learn in a given activity is that learning depends heavily on the significance individuals assign to the various activities they participate in. (. . . ) We can only compose the circumstances and conditions that promote learning. We cannot guarantee that it will happen at any given point in time or in any given way. (Lantolf 2005: 346)

Therefore, the composition of circumstances and conditions that promote learning in a particular context (for instance, learning a particular L2 in a certain geographical location, at a particular time, and in a sociocultural space) has to be developed by the teacher, ideally together with the learners. The teacher has to allow for the different subjective motivations of the learners, their goals for engaging in the particular learning activity, the aims prescribed by the syllabus, and his or her subjective teaching theories (cf. Grotjahn 2005).¹³ Teachers and learners can also draw on some insights of activity theory (cf. Section 5.3) which posits that subjective perception and knowledge are facilitated by material and symbolic tools, as well as by immediate communities of practice. Learning efforts that are centered on project work could foster learning processes which include several dimensions: (1) social (discussing with peers about the community of practice at hand, negotiating, and agreeing on decisions on the distribution of actions and operations to perform a complex activity); (2) affective (active involvement in these collaborative decision-processes, collaborating with others in achieving success, despite having different learning histories and different subjective traits); (3) behavioral (contributing to the collaborative or individual actions and opera-

12 This phrase is based on Gadamer (1960) who suggests that, in order to understand (in a hermeneutical sense), one has to “sich selbst ins Spiel bringen und aufs Spiel setzen” [bring one’s self into play and risk deep change] (Gadamer 1960: 268). 13 It should be noted here that the teacher is also an embodied subject with particular memories, preferences, and desires. His or her actual teaching practice is significantly influenced by experiences made as a pupil, and later as a teacher (Dann 1989: 82); these subjective theories of the individual teacher are very influential on his or her teaching process, and they are largely resistant to change.

298 | 9 Fostering intercultural competence in the second language classroom tions with the aim of successfully achieving the complex activity); (4) cognitive (deliberately dividing the activity into meaningful actions and operations, gaining new knowledge from carrying out the operations, actions, and the activity to achieve an objective); (5) meta-cognitive (planning to tackle the complex activity and devising a plan as to the many actions and operations that are most likely to result in successful completion of the project). Project work enhances the learners’ sense of agency and contributes to furthering processes of identity-construction, thus ameliorating the everyday conditions and effects of teaching and learning. During the activity of teaching or overseeing complex project work, the teacher must also be aware of the subjective motivations, problems, goals, personalities, and preferred learning styles of each learner and, on this basis, he or she has to try to create the ideal circumstances and conditions for the subjective learning process (cf. Witte and Harden 2010). However, even if the circumstances of learning have been ideally composed, the success of learning is never guaranteed because the subjective interests or motivations of learners cannot be externally controlled. Learners should not be left alone in the process of negotiating for meaning, but must get support, or scaffolding, from peers and the teacher. The term scaffolding is a metaphor used to describe the transitional character of support for cognitive and emotional construction. Just like buildings require scaffoldings in the process of being built because they cannot yet stand alone, learners require scaffolding for their construction processes concerning certain items in the second language and culture. However, once the process of acquisition and internalization has been accomplished, learners no longer require scaffolding for this aspect of knowledge. The teacher is part of the collaborative knowledge-building exercise in the L2 classroom, although he or she has the role of the more knowledgeable other in Vygotsky’s sense who, by passing on cultural tools to the learner, enhances his or her performance.¹⁴ According to Vygotsky, learning takes place in the “zone of proximal development” (Vygotsky 1978: 86), which denotes the cognitive space of development located just beyond the stage of previously acquired knowledge. The zone of proximal development (ZPD) allows for understanding the hitherto unknown, which can be accessed under careful assistance of more knowledgeable

14 The often-used term “more knowledgeable other” was not used as such by Vygotsky but is derived from his phrase “under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers” (Vygotsky 1978: 86).

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others such as peers or teachers.¹⁵ In the context of L2 learning, the ZPD stands for the distance between the potential the learner can achieve in the second language if assisted by others in joint activities that are still other-regulated, versus what he or she can accomplish alone in independent and self-regulated activity. Vygotsky defines the ZPD as, “the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers” (Vygotsky 1978: 86). Vygotsky elaborates: The zone of proximal development defines those functions that have not yet matured but are in the process of maturation, functions that will mature tomorrow but are currently in an embryonic state. These functions could be termed “buds” or “flowers” of development rather than the “fruits” of development. The actual developmental level characterizes mental development retrospectively, while the zone of proximal development characterizes mental development prospectively. (Vygotsky 1978: 86–87)

The difference between the two zones of development, actual and proximal, forms the key to the concept of the ZPD. This concept can be used in order to diagnose the potential of creating conditions that may give rise to the next developmental level of learners. Thus, the ZPD is not a descriptive analytical tool, but a practical tool to constructively apply in the teaching and learning process. If the teaching process is to be effective, the activity to which it is addressed should be understood as meaningful, satisfying, and as an intrinsic need of the learner which means that it is “incorporated into a task that is necessary and relevant for life” (Vygotsky 1978: 118); only then it can be considered effective scaffolding. The scaffolding process is not necessarily characterized by a situation where the teacher is providing assistance to the learner. In the place of the teacher, more capable peers of the same age group can often provide more adequate support for structurally creative and developmental processes. Peers have a better understanding of the particular circumstances in learning a certain aspect of the other language or culture, because they are at roughly the same developmental stage as their fellow pupils. From this position, they can provide tailored scaffolding beyond formal L2 accuracy and include sensitive assistance for developing

15 This definition of the ZPD seems to be very similar to Krashen’s (1985) i+1 (comprehensible input hypothesis). However, there are some marked differences, as Lantolf and Thorne (2006: 273) point out. Whereas Krashen defines the learner as autonomous, Vygotsky understands the learner’s personal ability as fundamentally co-constructed through activities with other people and artifacts in the environment. In addition, Krashen defines the learner as a passive body, whereas Vygotsky understands him or her to be a collaborative body.

300 | 9 Fostering intercultural competence in the second language classroom communicative and intercultural competences, subjective and social identities, and self-regulation. These more capable peers also benefit from the collaborative classroom because, in providing constructive scaffolding to others, they have to reconstruct their own knowledge and thus gain a deeper understanding of the issues under discussion. However, scaffolding can also be initiated by graduated assistance from the teacher. It is vital that the teacher provides no more assistance than is needed; otherwise the learner’s agentive capacity could be decreased and his or her potential for creativity and negotiation would be constrained. The well-trained teacher should have a good idea about how the L2 is learned, how interlanguage is structured, how a supportive learning environment is created, how the individual learners in the group construct their subjective knowledge, and how the learners in their respective stages of the ZPD can be supported. Ideally, the teacher should also know about the individual differences in L2 learning with regard to the level of preparedness of the learner to invest in the learning process, learner personality (for instance, risk-taking versus cautious), age (for example, the sensitive period), learning styles (e.g., visual, auditory, tactile, analytic), and favored learning strategies (e.g., social, emotional, cognitive, metacognitive). Only a familiarity with and awareness of these factors enables teachers to effectively tailor their assistance to the requirements of the learner (as a subject and in a group of learners): “Mediation (. . . ) cannot be offered in a haphazard, hit-or-miss fashion but must be tuned to the learner’s ZPD, which means taking account of individual’s or group’s actual level of development as well as continually recalibrating the mediation offered in order to accommodate – and indeed bring about – changes in the learner’s ZPD” (Lantolf and Thorne 2006: 356). Only this sensitive tailoring of minimal scaffolding can foster the learner’s increasing progress from other-regulation (e.g., by guided activities and scaffolding) to selfregulation (i.e., autonomous learning). This is an important step for fostering intercultural third places in learning a second language and culture in which the learner discovers and explores increasingly complex regularities and patterns of construction, not only in the L2, but also in the L1 and their respective cultural contexts. By explicitly negotiating for the meaning of these constructs and configurations, the learner develops, initially with the assistance of others, more confidence in his or her subjective construals located in-between the dominant patterns of both (or more) languages and cultures. Thus, the hybrid third space increasingly becomes the basis of construction for the learner, who can now mentally move away from the previously internalized certainties of monolingual and monocultural constructs.

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9.6 Second language learning and its effects on learners’ minds Notions of identity and self are central concepts in all human cultures (cf. Chapter 6). All processes of comprehending, acting, and interacting are carried out against the horizon of subjective construals of situated personal, social, and cultural identities. Constructs of identity are facilitated by participation in a myriad of linguistic, social, and cultural practices, and they guarantee the imagined coherence of the self which might otherwise be absorbed in respective contexts and thus lead to a diffusion of identity. Identity can only be negotiated in contexts of difference; therefore both categories are to be understood as complementing one another. For instance, the identity definition I am a Catholic implies that I am not a Protestant (or Muslim, Buddhist, atheist, animist, etc.). All human languages reflect the centrality of the concept of personal identity by having deictic terms referring to people, for example, the personal pronouns I and you. Therefore, poststructuralist demands of abandoning the category of identity, based on the assumed essentialism of this construct, should be resisted. Essentialist implications can be avoided by applying the concept of a dynamic, hybrid, narrative, and multi-layered self (cf. Chapter 6) which is located at the intersection of the categories of subjectivity, language, social context, society, and culture. The dynamism of subjective constructs of identity is guaranteed by the ontogenetic development of the person, but also by the diversity of personal, social, and cultural contacts. In addition, since the construct of identity, like every construct, fundamentally relies on language and its underlying cultural patterns, it is prone to constant change and renegotiation, not only by the subject, but also by others who engage with that person. Language use does not only derive from internalized structures such as concepts, beliefs, and schemata, but it emerges from the dynamic of events, either in the form of inner speech (cf. Section 2.2.3) or social interacation. Therefore, constructs of identity are always multilayered, dynamic, and context-dependent. The multiplicity and variability of the concept of identity manifests itself in the fact that a person has not one coherent identity (although subjectively this may appear to be the case) but multiple identities, aspects of which can be momentarily invoked according to the requirements of a particular situation, including the activity of positioning. The quality and range of identity formation and positionings depend on the level of access the individual has achieved with regard to language, genres, Discourses, narratives, frames, social constructs, and cultural patterns. This level of access develops basically in three stages of socialization. In the first stage of primary socialization, the individual acquires the fundamental categories of language, conceptualizations, frames, social pragmatics, and cultural

302 | 9 Fostering intercultural competence in the second language classroom constructs (cf. Section 2.3). In secondary socialization, these categories are reconstructed and expanded on more formal and comprehensive levels (cf. Section 2.4). Secondary socialization, the primary agent of which is schooling, lays the foundation for further conscious and deliberate learning and cognitive-emotional development in adult life. Interaction in the classroom and learning to write are important mediators of the positioning and re-definition of one’s identity: “[Learning] requires that children take on new cultural identities [which] affect their sense of self in profound ways” (Rowe 2008: 411). This is the case because children have to find their social voice among their peers in the classroom by selecting their topics, and conferring about specific aspects of the learning process. The classroom is more than just a temporary speech community within the school. It is a community of practice (cf. Lave and Wenger 1991) in which not only cognitive learning takes place, but social engagement of learners is required; after all, language is social practice, and therefore the study of language use is also a form of social practice requiring ways of doing things, using and developing beliefs, values, and power relations. Learning is not just an individual endeavor but takes place in social interactions. In this context, the learner has to position his or her self, while at the same time being positioned by the other learners. “For example, children’s choices to write about insects or video games position them in particular ways in relation to their peers, the ongoing dialogue in their classroom, and to the texts and practices of the larger society” (Rowe 2008: 412). L2 learning introduces another leap of personal development, including identity construction, because it fundamentally challenges the acquired stock of options for construal and restructures and redefines ways of knowing, understanding, construing, feeling, and (inter-)acting. Thus, L2 learning in its advanced stages can be likened to undergoing a tertiary socialization process (cf. Chapter 6), since it reconstitutes and expands the subject’s potential for construction, including identity-construction. In contrast to primary and secondary socialization, tertiary socialization involves reconstructing the categories of another linguistic system and the habitus of another socioculture, while at the same deconstructing the internalized linguistic and cultural constructs: In the cognitive, moral and behavioral changes of tertiary socialization there is a process of reassessment of assumptions and conventions stimulated by the juxtapositions and comparison of familiar experience and concepts with those of other cultures and societies. The purpose is not to replace the familiar with the new, nor to encourage identifications with another culture, but to de-familiarize and de-center, so that questions can be raised about one’s own culturally-determined assumptions and about the society in which one lives. (Byram 2008: 31)

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Ultimately, the activities of de-centering and de-familiarizing, facilitated by the encounter with alternative sociocultural ways of constructing “reality,” stimulates the blending of sociocultural spaces in the mind of the L2 learner. The result is a new basis for mental construction, and that is the subjective third place. The learner now has the ability to step beyond his or her cultural frame of reference. The development of intercultural places has repercussions for personal constructs of identity, as the underlying monolingual and monocultural patterns and structures are now being qualified and expanded by gaining access to alternative plausibility structures, cultural patterns, and values which are part and parcel of social L2 use. The fact that tertiary socialization, as defined above, overlaps in parts with secondary socialization, highlights the enormous complexity of the process and the genuine challenge it poses for learners who are still undergoing the secondary socialization process. Renegotiating one’s identity in the subjective third space between the L1 and L2 and their cultural contexts may be a difficult psychological process for the learner, because the first language is normally not only an anonymous semiotic system for him or her, but also the very personal mother tongue which has been given to the person by others from birth onwards. Typically, it has been adapted by the subject as a very personal property which has developed with the subject, and the person has grown into it and adapted it for personal use. It constitutes the most important subjective and intersubjective tool for construal on cognitive, but also on emotional and behavioral levels. Although one can learn other languages, the mother tongue always holds a special and very personal place in the individual’s life because of the intimate interrelation between the conceptualizations, grammar, pragmatics, and sounds of the native language and the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral development of the individual. The mother tongue is embodied by the subject, as, for example, is expressed in the following statement by Julia Alvarez, an American writer born and raised in the Dominican Republic (cited in Pavlenko 2006: 20): Spanish certainly was the language of storytelling, the language of the body and of the senses and of the emotional wiring of the child, so that still, when someone addresses me as ‘Hoolia’ (Spanish pronunciation of Julia), I feel my emotional self come to the fore. I answer Sí, and lean forward to kiss a cheek rather than answer Yes, and extend my hand for a handshake. Some deeper Julia is being summoned.

Here, the mother tongue triggers deeply internalized emotional and behavioral patterns of identity which would be different if the L2 as the language of the new living-environment would have been used. English as her L2 was not experienced as the medium of socialization, and the cultural community was also different from the newly adopted culture; hence, only the L1 can provoke such deeply

304 | 9 Fostering intercultural competence in the second language classroom embodied reactions. The mother tongue, therefore, is part of one’s identity, and it also exposes social identity by the accent used when speaking (in the L1 or the L2). This, in turn, has repercussions for the process of being positioned by others, or ascribed identity, and therefore on the identity-constructs of the subject because “differences in the use of language are quickly, and quite systematically, translated into inequalities between speakers” (Blommaert 2005: 71; emphasis in the original). The subjective intercultural constructs may at times be experienced as a threat to deeply embodied notions of identity which have been internalized monothetically, i.e., without asking questions as to their validity. Learners might fear losing their identity and their selves in the third spaces because, from their perspective, the safety of the taken-for-granted constructs is being challenged (cf. Bredella 1992: 569). Consequently, they may be less inclined to further engage with the L2 and withdraw to the apparent safety of the familiar. In order to overcome such a situation, teachers should be encouraged “to regard students’ identities as potential, and to experiment with activities that do not lock students into ‘finalized identities’” (Norton and Toohey 2011: 429). In order to unlock this potential, careful assistance is required of more knowledgeable others (for instance, teachers or more capable peers), who are aware of the individual’s current stage of ZPD and can provide tailored support for specific problems in the individual’s efforts of construing identities. This can be done, for example, by encouraging pupils to become aware of the multiple identities they already have, for instance, as children of their parents, as pupils in school, as customers in shops, as friends, as members of clubs, etc. By reflecting on these multiple identities and acting them out in role plays (including the different voices they entail), the possible fear of taking on a multilingual and intercultural identity may be reduced, and by constructively discussing ascribed identities of classmates, or the shaping of identities by membership of a group (e.g., the class community, the family, the tennis club), the complexity and multiplicity of concepts of identity can be discovered, for example, by producing an analytical autoethnographic account of one’s notions of self in different contexts, including the aspirations with regard to an imagined L2 identity. However, the learner’s constructs of personal and social identities can be affected from the first lesson in the L2 classroom onwards. This is due to the potentially upsetting experience that suddenly one can no longer verbally express oneself in the comfortable and non-reflective manner one is used to from the first language. All at once, the internalized linguistic, conceptual, communicative, and pragmatic means of the L1 cannot be accessed for producing utterances in the L2; the automaticity of one’s own voice has been lost in the L2. This can be an unsettling experience, especially for adolescents, because their carefully constructed image as a self-assured “cool” person may be undermined by stuttering

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and searching for words while the whole class is watching. This loss of face can have very negative consequences, not only for the social identity of the learner, but also for his or her personal identity-constructs, as well as impacting negatively on the preparedness to continue learning this potentially unsettling other semiotic system and its sociocultural context. Negotiation for identity is neither a one-dimensional process nor is it confined to the cognitive level in the L2 classroom, as Kramsch suggests: The acquisition of another language is not an act of disembodied cognition, but is the situated, spatially and temporarily anchored, co-construction of meaning between teachers and learners who each carry with them their own history of experience with language and communication. Culture is not one worldview, shared by all members of a national speech community; it is multifarious, changing, and, more often than not, conflictual. (Kramsch 2004: 255; emphasis added)

It is therefore important that teachers and learners make every effort to create a reassuring, pleasant, playful, collaborative, supportive, relevant, encouraging, and non-threatening learning environment which emphasizes the positive and enriching aspects of the initial encounter with the second language and its conceptualizations. The adequate provision of tailored scaffolding does not only require fine pedagogical abilities, methodological awareness, and didactical sensitivity on the part of teacher, but also intercultural competence in terms of dealing adequately with cultural heterogeneity and potential conflicts of voices and identities in the classroom. Intercultural competence in this sense includes the cultural sensitivity of the teacher not to reduce students in the classroom to their cultural or ethnic backgrounds, but to perceive and treat every single student as a representative of the intercultural ethos of the school they are attending (cf. Over and Mienert 2010: 43).¹⁶ Providing appropriate scaffolding for learners’ engagement with the other language and socioculture will also lead to the ability to deal fearlessly with difference, and not to perceive it as a threat to subjective constructs of identity. It is important to create this playful atmosphere, especially at the beginning of the learning process, so that the students are encouraged to invest more time and effort into learning the second language and culture. They will do so with an understanding that they will acquire a wider range of symbolic and material

16 A fine example of professionally displayed intercultural competence by a teacher is provided by Elizabeth, a Mexican exchange student at the University of Manitoba in Canada who, after attending a multicultural class with students of many different nationalities, cultures, and religions, writes: “Today my classmate from Kuwait is fasting because she is celebrating Ramadan; the professor was aware of that and just at the hour that her fasting ended the professor made a break so that she could eat something” (Elizabeth, cited in Ryan 2009: 63).

306 | 9 Fostering intercultural competence in the second language classroom resources which will in turn increase their cultural capital (cf. Norton and Toohey 2002: 122; Chapter 6).¹⁷ In this way, their sense of themselves and their identity are reassessed in terms of aspirations for the future. Once this initial threshold has been crossed and learners display their enthusiasm and their willingness to invest, the ever more intensive engagement with the other linguistic structure and, more importantly, with the other cultural patterns and social habitus, will increasingly influence their identity-constructs. Intensive, playful, collaborative, and subjective engagement with the differential norms, beliefs, constructs, practices, customs, traditions, and emotions has a liberating and transformative effect on subjective construals in the sense that learners are no longer solely influenced by the linguistic and sociocultural context of the L1. By developing agency in the L2 classroom on the part of the learners, new roles can be explored and new identities can, at least temporarily, be adopted. Developing agency in the classroom is important because agency (a) stimulates reflexivity on one’s own environment-oriented actions, (b) is oriented to the social world in the L2 classroom (and beyond) by understanding the actions of others, (c) encourages self-reflexively related to the purpose and level of investment of one’s actions, (d) is related contemplatively to some transcendental phenomenon (cf. Eckensberger 2003: 93). By learning not only another linguistic system, but a diverse set of sociocultural conceptualizations, values, and practices, the subject continues to develop for himself or herself increasingly complex intercultural blended places which are highly dynamic and subject-specific. Comparable to the special status of the L1 in subjective development, they are also experienced by the learner as something unique to him or her because they open up a new world of construal, just as the L1 did in childhood. Of course, intercultural spaces do not develop in tandem with the essential cognitive, social, and emotional maturation typical of primary socialization, but the subjectivity of these spaces is facilitated by the subjective character of the interlanguage, of translating, and by subjective efforts to gain access to the other sociocultural world with its different construals. Meaningful intercultural learning, including the conscious development of third places, presupposes the ability to transform elements of the self which is not possible when the L2 learning process remains at a superficial level, for example, when limited to focusing on learning grammar or communication in

17 Coffey (2010: 52) rightly points out that this “capital is not an individual competence but a historically situated set of potentials, which are more or less sanctioned and reinforced in particular social worlds.” Cultural capital can have, as the term capital implies, an economic dimension which not only refers to the employment prospects of a person with a L2, but also to the prestige of the languages concerned.

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pragmatically limited situations. This kind of sustained deeper access and implicit change of subjective positioning is only possible, when the contexts of social and cultural practices are explicitly included in the structured holistic long-term learning process. This integrated approach is best fostered by creating rich learning environments, characterized by playful performance, collaborative, experientially-based, multi-perspective, and explorative learning activities which involve the learner holistically. Only by accessing the sociocultural constructs of “realities,” or daily Lebenswelt, of the other cultural community by means of empathy, can a real understanding be developed, because constructs of social reality underlie the practical contexts of action.

10 Mediating and assessing intercultural competence in the L2 classroom Learning is a lifelong process of acquiring knowledge and competences in order to be able to become a fully active and responsible member of society. This process is only partially fostered by formal teaching situations. Most activities of learning take place outside the classroom and are achieved incidentally by going about one’s everyday life, be it as a child or as an adult. Learning, therefore, transcends the cognitive realm and includes psychological, affective, and behavioral traits. This kind of holistic learning is difficult to foster in the restrained institutional context of schooling with its particular demands, structures, and environments. On the one hand, the L2 classroom is deficient in its less than authentic instructional setting; it cannot provide the richness and complexity of an immersion situation, even if, for example, digital media provide access to universally available materials from other cultures lodged in cyberspace, hence making the classroom’s physical boundaries more permeable. On the other hand, the L2 classroom provides a plurilingual and intercultural learning environment which facilitates and encourages the exploration of and reflection upon alternative constructs and performances of realities; this is done collaboratively within the community of enquiry and subjectively by relating new experiences to existing knowledge and memories. The most viable way to offer students holistic learning opportunities in the classroom is the facilitation of rich and multi-perspective experiential learning situations where learners learn from each other’s learning experiences, thus being actively and subjectively engaged in the process (cf. Bracher 2006). Knowledge is constructed by the learner, not supplied by the teacher. The classroom provides a structured space for creation and enunciation where the construction of new knowledge is produced through meaningful interaction between learners, teachers, and materials; these interactions are grounded in the experiences and identities of learners (and teachers) and emphasize the different perspectives adopted by the participating individuals. The grounding of learning in the identities of learners is relevant in L2 learning because students are encouraged to re-imagine their selves through another semiotic system, hence trying to imagine what it would be like to take on one’s modified identity in circumstances that are specific to the target socioculture and to the dominant L2 Discourses. According to Bracher (2006), meaningful learning contributes to changes in the construction of one’s identity. If learning processes did not address identity issues, only short-term replication of superficially learned cognitive knowledge would be fostered by students, detached from their subjective identities and only geared towards fulfilling the demands of the education

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system. Therefore, students have to be provided with ample room for negotiating their subjective identities in terms of testing alternative constructs of their selves, based on alternative semiotic and cultural systems. The semiotic and cultural gaps experienced in these processes of intellectual, emotional, and behavioral production contribute to the development of transient intercultural third places. These gaps can be momentarily filled with the subjective stance of the L2 learner, based on the developing knowledge and awareness of the differences and similarities in linguistic structures, cultural patterns, and social habitus of the different speech communities. Experiential learning in the L2 classroom thus facilitates processes of intercultural learning and conceptual blending; this can take the verbal form of debates, personal stories, case studies, discussions, and reflections in cooperative groups of learners. It can also be fostered in a more comprehensive manner by developing and performing role plays, drama activities, games, simulations, models, empathy-taking activities, imaginative activities, and hypothesizing as a means of theory-construction within the group of learners. The subjective learning process can be documented by the reflective writing of portfolios, personal journals, and learning diaries, all detailing the subjective conflicts and advancements in trying to engage with the Other in a holistic manner, involving the domains of feeling, observing, thinking, imagining, and acting. Reflective writing establishes a metacognitive level of analyzing learners’ processes of construction with respect to artifacts and configurations of the other language and culture, of the L1 and its cultural context, and the emerging intercultural spaces. Thus, learners move away from the hands-on activity of learning language to a more distanced position of self-reflection in terms of how they approach language learning in general and how they try to construct the meaning and relevance of the underlying cultural elements. In order to capture the complexity of the learning process, the concept of competence is frequently used; however, it is typically used in two distinct ways. Firstly, it can refer to a narrower notion of dealing with particular abilities and skills. The concept of mathematical competence, for example, refers to the ability to solve mathematical problems. Secondly, the broader concept of holistic competence refers not only to “contingent surface behaviors but (. . . ) to deep-seated traits, habits or virtues” (Fleming 2009: 9), extending into the psychological domain. Whereas the first concept of competence is popular with educationalists, as it emphasizes measurable performance by the learner as well as commensurable learning outcomes, the latter concept is not amendable to precise operationalization and evaluation. Due to the immense complexity of the learning process in acquiring intercultural competence, it seems obvious that the latter holistic concept of competence is applicable to intercultural learning. Intercultural competence

310 | 10 Mediating and assessing intercultural competence in the L2 classroom in this wider sense includes domain-specific knowledge (relating to the subject matter as such), (meta-)cognitive strategies (of approaching and dealing with the intercultural problem at hand on the basis of one’s knowledge of one’s own cognitive abilities, including developing a metacognitive approach to solving the problem), and emotional dimensions (attitudes and feelings towards dealing with the issue) (cf. Sercu 2010: 76–77). Intercultural competence is a complex, yet vague construct entailing highly subjective notions of disposition, intention, experience, motivation, and identity, thus making it extremely difficult to evaluate in the L2 classroom. However, it can be argued that a comprehensive assessement of intercultural competence is neither necessary nor possible in the institutional school framework, because the cognitive-instructive demands of the institution can interfere with a genuine interest in developing highly subjective intercultural constructs (cf. Section 10.3). Psychological constructs of subjective identity, for example, cannot be precisely measured, because they can only be partially verbalized. However, from the subjective point of view of the learner, there may be genuine curiosity to know about the current subjective status of intercultural competence so as to consciously engage in developing the preconditions to advance to the next level of development. Although intercultural competence is, ultimately, neither precisely measurable nor holistically assessable, a model of constitutive principles for fostering intercultural competence can provide indications for learners as to their current subjective level of development; this, in turn, can provide essential information for teachers as to the current zone of proximal development of each individual learner. This kind of information, however, is only indicative because the intercultural accounts of subjective learning are always stronger, richer, and more complex than the models, principles, phases, and theories framing the processes of developing intercultural competence. A model of pedagogical principles serves the function of providing a general framework for teachers and learners alike with respect to the sequential process of allowing for the development of linguistic and intercultural competence in the domains of cognition, emotion, behavior, and habitus. Intercultural competence is not something new that exists outside of persons in some neutral space and has to be gradually introduced to L2 learners by means of a carefully phased program, but it is something that already exists deep inside the learners which needs to be found, expressed, explored, fostered, and developed. In L2 learning, tacit knowledge refers initially to knowledge and competence in the linguistic L1 system, but it also includes knowledge of cultural patterns of construction and social norms of action and interaction, as applied in everyday real life. Thus, the cognitive realm of L2 learning has to be extended into emotional, habitual, and psychological domains. This expansion of domains in L2 learning can have a significant effect on motivations and attitudes, as well as

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on subjective constructs of social, cultural, and personal identities. At the root of this psychological impact is the fact that, once the biological line of development intersects with the sociocultural line in early childhood, the cultural artifact of language has gained a structuring influence on thought and inner language (cf. Chapters 2 & 3; Vygotsky 1986). Consequently, the notion of competence which has traditionally been located within the subject has to be located on the borderline between the subjective and collective potentials for construal, due to the formative influences of language and culture on subjective patterns of thought (cf. Vygotsky’s [1978, 1986] concept of internalization). In addition, subjective intercultural competence is not a static concept; it is constantly affected by the individual’s engagement in interactive processes with others and Other. There are many definitions and models of intercultural competence (for a comprehensive overview, cf. Spitzberg and Changnon 2009), and most of these agree that the complex construct of intercultural competence fundamentally includes cognitive, psychological, emotional, and behavioral domains. These domains can be further differentiated to include the ability to be non-judgmental, an acceptance of a non-universality of cultural values, the ability to see and take on a different point of view, awareness of expectations and constraints of role behavior (or positioning, cf. Section 4.5), skills of interaction management (communicative effectiveness and adequacy), and tolerance of ambiguity (ability to deal with uncertainty) (cf. O’Regan and MacDonald 2007; Byram 2008: 163). These intercultural abilities, skills, behaviors, and types of awareness have been particularly well characterized in Byram’s (1997) comprehensive definition of intercultural competence, based on the five savoirs (cf. Introduction to Chapter 9). Even if the emotional domain is not given its proper status in this definition, it is still the most comprehensible model of intercultural competence that is presently available. Deardorff’s (2009: 480) model has the advantage of conceptualizing the different dimensions of intercultural competence as dynamic and evolving, but it does not capture the four dimensions in the same depth of analysis as Byram’s (1997) five savoirs. Therefore, Byram’s (1997) definition of intercultural competence will be taken as the basis for the deliberations in this chapter, and it will be expanded upon in section 10.2 in terms of the emotional dimension. The preconditions for developing intercultural competence are attitudes of genuine respect for the values of other people and cultures, openness, humor, interest, patience, and curiosity, including the readiness to suspend deeply internalized norms, values, and (dis-)beliefs with regard to one’s own and other cultures. Developmental models of intercultural competence assume a gradual shift of the frame of reference away from ethnocentric attitudes and beliefs to an ethnorelative worldview in terms of intercultural adaptability, flexibility, and empathy (cf. Section 10.1).

312 | 10 Mediating and assessing intercultural competence in the L2 classroom Many of these components of intercultural competence extend into the subconscious realm. For example, hardly anyone would readily admit to holding ethnocentric, racist, intolerant, or xenophobic views, yet some people (including many L2 speakers) behave in everyday life in an intolerant, ethnocentric, and xenophobic manner. This kind of unacceptable behavior can be seen as a reflection of a very superficial, if indeed any, level of intercultural learning that has not touched upon (and thus has not changed) subjective attitudes which are based on unfounded and unreflected, yet apparently deeply held feelings of cultural, ethnic, or racial superiority. Since subjective constructs of self, Other, and world are in constant flux due to the dynamism of language, culture, and the subjective way of life, it is impossible to conceptualize intercultural competence as a precisely definable and assessable goal of learning. None of the components and dispositions mentioned above can be neatly defined, operationalized, taught, or learned in a comprehensive manner with precisely definable learning outcomes (cf. Witte 2011). The best viable access to L2-related cultural constructs, social structures, and linguistic conceptualizations is facilitated by applying a construcionist approach which recognizes that subjective intercultural competence evolves over time in constant dialogue with the other cultural systems of meaning and belief. Emphasis is thus placed on the structured and progressive nature of the individual learner’s increasing access to and awareness of the subjective intercultural spaces which develop and open up by the learner’s engagement with elements of the target culture and target language. This approach implies that the extremely complex construct of intercultural competence has to be scaled down, at least in the early stages of L2 learning, to a succession of learnable facets, with each of which the learner actively engages in his or her present state of the subjective ZPD (and not as a container to be filled up with knowledge). However, this reduction of complexity has to be carried out very carefully, because the learner must have ample room for collaborative, explorative, multiperspective, and experiential learning with genuine opportunities for discovery and construction, which are not unduly restricted or pre-determined by the didactic reduction implemented by the teacher (or the textbook). On the other hand, the teacher cannot withdraw from structuring and guiding the L2 class because, “If teachers do nothing to structure the level of interaction, they may well find that students stick to the most concrete mode of interaction” (Cohen 1994: 22). The teacher should be the facilitator of learning in terms of organizing appropriate learning opportunities for and with the learners, providing constructive feedback and encouragement, and creating a friendly and constructive learning atmosphere and adequate learning spaces for each individual learner’s ZPD, as well as for the group of learners. The goal of mediating intercultural competence in the L2 classroom clearly cannot be achieved by teaching explicitly about every

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possible (inter-)cultural element; rather, the objective is to expose learners to relevant aspects of the other language and culture so as to provide them with the means of arriving at their own conclusions concerning the (inter-)cultural patterns and contexts of the L2 and the L1, including the ability to recognize the Discourses behind what has been said, that is, what could have been said and what has been left unsaid in an utterance. It is important to ensure that learners are not only confronted with the opportunity to solve problems, as formulated by the teacher or in the textbook, but also that they can themselves engage in framing problems and discover what the problems are or could be (from their subjective point of view). This principle should also be extended to the organization of the classroom as a community of practice, for instance, with regard to agreeing on a set of rules for the class in terms of students’ input in selecting content and process, communication management, and taking on responsibility. In a teaching experiment carried out at a school in Finland, Kohonen (2001: 38) reports that this collaborative approach to organizing the process of learning enhanced the self-esteem and self-confidence of L2 learners. The process of acquiring intercultural competence involves long-term efforts of explicit and implicit learning.¹ Developing intercultural competence must be an intentional, comprehensive, and coordinated process; it does not come about automatically as a by-product of L2 learning, as some researchers assume (e.g., Edmondson and House 1998). As mentioned above, the goal of this process cannot be precisely defined, but only characterized in fairly general terms, such as the ability to be non-judgmental, open-minded, curious, and tolerant of ambiguity, which are not in themselves stable entities, but are subject to constant deand reconstruction. Consequently, it seems obvious that intercultural competence cannot be taught explicitly in a comprehensive or product-oriented fashion within normal institutional L2 instruction. Rather, the process of acquiring intercultural competence has to be the objective of institutionalized teaching and learning, not the finished and static end-product of the ideal interculturally competent learner (who does not exist). Institutional learning does not occur in an instant and chaotic fashion, but is planned, coordinated, and supported by teachers, curricula, learning materials, and peers. Planning and support has to be oriented around the subjective ZPD of the learners and geared towards the intended learning objectives. Whereas the teacher and the learning materials scaffold the intercultural learning process

1 Whereas explicit learning is characterized by directed attentiveness and awareness of the contents of what one is learning, implicit learning takes place without intention and awareness (cf. Williams 2005: 269).

314 | 10 Mediating and assessing intercultural competence in the L2 classroom to a high degree in the initial period of learning, the scaffolding can be gradually scaled back and the learners themselves can increasingly take control of and shape their own learning activities in terms of content and process. The process of developing intercultural competence is, just like institutional teaching and learning in general, not chaotic, instant and opaque. The learning process can be differentiated into several sequential principles which inform the efforts of planning for learning sequences within these stages. The best-known model of developing intercultural sensitivity is that of Milton J. Bennett (1993) which conceptualizes the developmental process from ethnocentric to ethnorelative stages in some detail; however, it was developed for a professional context and was not intended for L2 learning.

10.1 Critique of Bennett’s (1993) developmental model of intercultural sensitivity Milton J. Bennett’s (1993) Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity (DMIS) is rooted in research into the experiences of Westerners working abroad (e.g., Peace Corps volunteers) and was motivated by perceived cross-cultural communication problems that impacted negatively on the collaboration between individuals from different cultural backgrounds. In the 1980s, the contexts for intercultural competence research expanded to include study abroad, international business, and cross-cultural training. Intercultural research in these fields was primarily interested in four main goals: “(1) to explain overseas failure, (2) to predict overseas success, (3) to develop personnel selection strategies, and (4) to design, implement and test sojourner training and preparation methodologies” (Ruben 1989: 230). In this context, Bennett developed the dynamic model of DMIS which is supposed to be able to explain and predict how individuals respond to cultural differences and how their responses evolve over time if the levels of cultural challenges increase in relation to the intensity of the subject’s exposure to the other culture. Although the DMIS is aimed at resolving these cross-cultural communication problems of practitioners working outside of their native culture, it has been hugely influential for educators and trainers over the past decades (cf. Paige and Goode 2009: 339) whose interest is primarily focused on facilitating and developing intercultural competence in the classroom, typically located in the learners’ first culture. This interest in the DMIS is hardly surprising, given the fact that intercultural sensitivity does not occur suddenly but evolves over time, due to the

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evolutionary nature of interaction and relationships.² Bennett’s DMIS draws on rich traditions in developmental psychology and on insights into the development of human relationships in intercultural encounters that involve the evolution of increasing intercultural competence by means of ongoing interaction, which in turn leads to greater co-orientation and incorporation of the other’s cultural perspective in intercultural (inter-)action. The DMIS attempts to identify the levels of awareness of, and sensitivity and ability to adapt to, the different patterns of cognition, emotion, and behavior inherent in other cultures. It proposes a continuum of six developmental stages of intercultural competence, which are grouped into three ethnocentric stages (i.e., the individual’s culture determines his or her central worldview) and three ethnorelative stages (i.e., the individual’s culture is one of many equally valid worldviews), as follows (cf. Bennett 1993: 30–65): 1. In the first ethnocentric stage, denial, the individual tends to deny the existence of differences between cultures by erecting subjective psychological, social, or physical barriers in the form of isolation and separation from other cultures. 2. In the second ethnocentric stage of defense, the individual reacts against the perceived threat of specific features of other cultures by denigrating the other cultures in terms of negative stereotyping and simultaneously promoting the perceived superiority of one’s own culture. In some cases of long-term sojourners abroad, for example, for Peace Corps volunteers, a reversal phase may occur, during which an identification with the other culture sets in, and the own culture is subject to disparagement. 3. Finally, in the third ethnocentric stage of minimization, the individual overtly acknowledges cultural differences in a trivial manner on the surface but naively considers all cultures as fundamentally similar, thus adopting the attitude that “one need only be truly one’s self to ensure successful [intercultural] communication” (Bennett 1993: 44). 4. During the first ethnorelative stage of acceptance, the individual tends to respect and accept cultural differences with regard to behavior and values, without evaluating the existence of cultural difference positively or negatively.

2 The terminology of intercultural competence and intercultural sensitivity refers to basically the same phenomenon, i.e., having the abilities and skills necessary for appropriate and successful intercultural communication. Bennett and his colleagues distinguished in a later publication between knowing and doing in interculturally competent ways by defining intercultural sensitivity as “the ability to discriminate and experience relevant cultural differences” and intercultural competence as “the ability to think and act in interculturally appropriate ways” (Hammer, Bennett, and Wiseman 2003: 422; emphasis added).

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6.

In the second ethnorelative stage, adaptation, the individual develops the ability to shift parts of his or her frame of reference to other, culturally diverse frameworks through empathy and pluralism. In the last stage of integration, the individual expands and incorporates other worldviews into his or her own frame of reference.

These six stages comprise a continuum from least interculturally competent, which is still determined by monocultural constructs, to most interculturally competent, which integrates elements of the first culture and other cultures in the subject’s potential for construal on a cognitive level; together, they illustrate a dynamic way of modeling the development of intercultural competence, assuming that the own perspective is gradually changing and opening up to newly encountered differential cultural constructs. The basic assumption is that the fundamental experience of cultural difference activates a subjective holistic process of development which evolves from initial ethnocentric stages to the more (inter-)culturally inclusive ethnorelative stages, thus reflecting the increasing intercultural awareness and sensitivity of the intercultural learner. The DMIS, although designed for intercultural practitioners and trainers with the goal of enhancing their awareness of the intercultural development of their trainees, has also found its way into the theory and practice of second language teaching and learning. For instance, the DMIS was used to assess the outcomes of the intercultural module of the large-scale DESI study (DESI = Deutsch Englisch Schülerleistungen International [German English Pupils’ Performances International]) that was conducted between 2001 and 2006 with 9,623 ninth-grade pupils in Germany with the aim of evaluating their intercultural competence with regard to the English language and culture (cf. Hesse and Göbel 2007). The intercultural study within DESI used only two artificially constructed critical incidents to elicit the data for determining the developmental stages of pupils’ intercultural competence which is clearly too reductionist to evaluate their competence in a comprehensive, reliable, and valid manner (cf. Section 10.3). This, however, is a structural flaw of DESI, and not of the DMIS. The DMIS is “phenomenological in the sense that it describes a learner’s subjective experience of cultural difference” (Bennett 1993: 22; emphasis in the original). This statement already indicates that the model is aimed at intercultural educators and trainers (and not students) who prepare professionals for a sustained sojourn in another sociocultural context that is characterized by patterns and structures vastly different from the First World context into which they have been socialized (Bennett repeatedly mentions the USA as the source culture). Thus, the DMIS is aimed at a target group that is significantly different from second language education in which, typically, the experiences provided in the classroom

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are neither authentic nor necessarily designed for immediate use in the sense that a sojourn of the L2 learner in the target culture is actually envisaged (with the exception of the communicative approach). In the DMIS, Bennett is quite rightly concerned with cultural differences and experiences, but he does not pay any attention to the linguistic patterns which are reflective of and constitutive for the cultural context of a speech community. Hence, the role of the language which is at the core of cultural construction is not given its proper status as the central semiotic system of a given socioculture. It is questionable whether deep understanding of a culture is possible if it is not approached through its central semiotic system, i.e., its language, as Fantini (2009: 459) suggests: “The lack of second language proficiency, even minimally, constrains us to think about the world and act within it entirely in our native system, a decidedly ethnocentric approach.” When languages other than English are alluded to in the DMIS, for example, in experiences of students’ “homestay in France” (Bennett 1993: 47), it is evident that the American students in France are not able to meaningfully speak or understand French (Bennett 1993: 47). Even when the author refers to examples of his own experience, for instance, of ordering sushi in a restaurant in Japan (Bennett 1993: 54), he makes it clear that his linguistic knowledge of Japanese (in contrast to his knowledge of Japanese customs) is very limited and leads to misunderstandings even in such a simple communicative situation. These reported experiences hint at a fundamental ethnocentric approach in terms of understanding differential cultures; the other culture is approached, and thus deformed, by translating its cultural, habitual, pragmatic, and communicative features into the native language of the visitor, thereby stripping them of their sociocultural context of use and eliminating them in their authenticity. The complete lack of attention paid to foreign languages becomes even more evident in some of the “developmental strategies” proposed, for example, the idea of generating cultural self-awareness through “discussion” (Bennett 1993: 45), presumably conducted in the L1 of learners. Bennett relates to foreign languages only as “the most obvious of behavioral differences” (Bennett 1993: 48), that is, as a form of communicative behavior that can be observed from the outside, without actually learning or understanding it from the inside. Although Bennett clearly supports the Whorfian hypothesis of linguistic relativity (cf. Bennett 1993: 48), he does not follow up on this by elaborating on linguistic relativity, but instead focuses on “differences in communication style” (Bennett 1993: 48). In a similar manner, the developmental strategies suggested by Bennett for the stage of adaptation emphasize the training of empathy by engaging in “dyads with other-culture partners, facilitated multicultural group discussions, or outside assignments involving interviewing of people from other cultures” (Bennett 1993: 58). The languages of these interactive activities are not explicitly stated, but it

318 | 10 Mediating and assessing intercultural competence in the L2 classroom seems likely that interaction is facilitated by the dominant language of the trainers and the trainees, i.e., English. This procedure cannot provide deeper insights into the culture and the habitus of the members of other speech communities, as specific patterns of linguistic conceptualization and construction, and the plausibility structures inherent in the foreign language cannot be deciphered by the cultural outsider who wants to gain an understanding of the other cultural practices. Therefore, Bennett neglects the linguistic dimension of cultural practices. He also fails to make the important connection between linguistic-conceptual and cultural relativity. The DMIS, therefore, excludes subjective processes of negotiating for meaning which are linguistically and conceptually induced. Rather than going into the nitty-gritty of the subjective dimension of stages of intercultural construal, the DMIS remains operating on a sociocultural and descriptive level. This is owed to the main target group of the DMIS (i.e., development aid workers such as Peace Corps volunteers) who will provide assistance and advice to members of other cultural communities, but are not expected to learn the others’ language, or intentionally develop intercultural third places. Furthermore, the DMIS operates with the sociological terminology of “oppressed minority groups” (Bennett 1993: 28, 33, 38, 40, 42, 56, 62) which is not immediately relevant for second language acquisition processes, and, at times, it uses rather extreme examples for exemplifying an argument. For instance, “the Nazi extermination of Jews and other ‘undesirables’ and the Khmer Rouge elimination of educated Cambodians” (Bennett 1993: 33) are used in order to illustrate the sub-stage of separation as “the intentional erection of physical and social barriers to create distance from cultural difference as a means of maintaining a state of denial” (Bennett 1993: 32). The Nazi extermination camps and the Khmer Rouge elimination of educated Cambodians came into existence as a result of the statesponsored terrorism of dictatorships in order to maintain their structural power; they are not the result of German or Cambodian subjects’ ethnocentric constructs of otherness and separation on a mass level. The difference between “us” and “them” was constructed mainly by extremist politicians under the leadership of Hitler and Pol Pot respectively, and was directed against certain groups of their own citizens, not against cultural others. Another critique of the DMIS concerns the finer strands of the procedural design of the model. Bennett constructs the DMIS as a linear model of adding stages of knowledge to the original stock of knowledge held by the learner (cf. Bennett 1993: 52) which in its core remains unaffected (although knowledge is, of course, transformed in the newly constructed dimensions). This seems astonishing, as the progression of stages suggests that the initially prevalent ethnocentric views are gradually replaced by ethnorelative attitudes. The DMIS is additiveprogressive as to the development of stages in the sense that stages cannot be

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skipped in the developmental process (cf. Bennett 1993: 41), because this would entail the danger of reverting or degenerating to earlier stages. For example, for the stage of adaptation, “Maintenance of one’s original worldview is encouraged, so the adaptations necessary for communication in other cultures extend, rather than replace, one’s native skills. (. . . ) [O]ne might temporarily behave or value in a way appropriate to a different culture [but this] does not threaten the integrity or existence of one’s own cultural identity” (Bennett 1993: 52; emphasis added). It appears to be obvious from this statement that the DMIS tends to treat existing knowledge as a monolithic block in cognition that can only be expanded but not intrinsically changed, deconstructed, restructured, transformed, or reconfigured. However, as is evident from the discussion in Chapter 7 of this book, previously acquired knowledge does intrinsically change and is reconfigured in the process of acquiring new knowledge. This is particularly apparent in the acquisition-process of new linguistic and cultural knowledge in cognitive, emotional, and behavioral dimensions, which leads to a relativization of existing knowledge in the sense of developing intercultural third places which then function as a genuinely new basis for subjective construal. Only for the last stage of the DMIS, integration, does Bennett (1993: 59) imply that the acquisition of new cultural knowledge does have a transformative effect on existing knowledge. Although he does not say so directly, he cites Adler (1977: 26; italics in the original, cited in Bennett 1993: 59) that the culturally sensitive person is “always in the process of becoming a part of and apart from a given cultural context.” However, Bennett then goes on to define the identity of the interculturally sensitive learner “in pluralistic terms; that is, to see one’s self existing within a collection of various cultural and personal frames of reference” (Bennett 1993: 59). The use of the term “collection” points, again, to an additive approach, rather than an ongoing de- and reconstruction of identity, which its oscillating and blending elements of self and Other, thus changing them in terms of validity and quality. In this context, Bennett states that, while one could lose or discard one’s primary cultural affiliation in the stage of adaptation, one can in the following stage integrate “disparate aspects of one’s identity into a new whole while remaining culturally marginal while staying outside the constraints of any particular one [culture]” (Bennett 1993: 60). This statement can be interpreted as a description of the evolving intercultural stance of the learner which is no longer tied to any one particular culture. However, it could also be interpreted as the learner’s overreliance on constitutive static elements of the cultures when developing cultural identities, while neglecting the learner’s subjective engagement in negotiating his or her intercultural awareness on the background of individual experiences, emotions, memories, and needs. This seems to be implied when Bennett characterizes the first sub-stage of integration, “contextual evaluation” (Bennett 1993: 60–63),

320 | 10 Mediating and assessing intercultural competence in the L2 classroom as “a development beyond adaptation where one attains the ability to analyze and evaluate situations from one or more cultural perspectives” (Bennett 1993: 61). Again, this suggests the application of perspectives in an additive manner, for example, approaching a situation from a particular cultural angle, e.g., Japanese or US-American (Bennett 1993: 62), and not so much the blending and fusing of the many levels of constructs to suit one’s own subjective intercultural stance. This element of blending linguistic, emotional, normative, value-related, and habitual categories of the cultures involved is not given proper attention in the DMIS. In short, the whole dimension of the intercultural third space is not considered in this model, although it would lend itself to the inclusion into the DMIS as one of the central spheres of intercultural development. In the last developmental stage of the DMIS, “constructive marginality,” which is supposedly “unnecessary for most nonprofessional purposes” (Bennett 1993: 63), Bennett uses rather negative terms to characterize its content, for example, stating “that marginality describes exactly the subjective experience of people who are struggling with the total integration of ethnorelativism. They are outside all cultural frames of reference by virtue of their ability to consciously raise any assumption to a metalevel [. . . ]. In other words, there is no natural cultural identity for a marginal person” (Bennett 1993: 63; emphasis added). What is overlooked in this definition is the fact that every form of identity is linguistically and socioculturally facilitated, and subjectively and collectively construed, be it consciously or not. Therefore, interculturally competent subjects do not “struggle” to develop their intercultural third space, but they are in a privileged position to consciously and subconsciously blend and fuse cultural spaces in cognitive, emotional, and behavioral domains, and are thus enabled to deal effortlessly with potentially tricky intercultural situations charged with difference. These persons do not suffer from the loss or a lack of “natural cultural identity,” but they are fully aware of their enhanced and privileged identity-constructs which can draw on more than one set of linguistic conceptualizations, cultural patterns, and social norms. More than twenty years since its inception, Bennett’s DMIS is still considered to be one of the most influential models for conceptualizing the developmental stages of intercultural sensitivity, mainly due to the detailed definition of the different stages the learner has to pass through in a particular sequence in order to develop and internalize a high degree of intercultural sensitivity. Bennett claims that the DMIS is developmental, in that it develops intercultural sensitivity in learners and practitioners in a linear manner with the objective of preparing them for work in foreign sociocultural contexts. He states that the purpose of this model is to “describe how cultural difference is comprehended and [to] identify strategies that impede such comprehension” (Bennett 1993: 22). The

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DMIS “describes a learner’s subjective experience of cultural difference, not just the objective behavior of either learner or trainer” (Bennett 1991: 22; emphasis in the original), thus it is firmly anchored in the pedagogical framework of a learner-centered approach; it supposedly employs all devices, methodologies, and strategies necessary at every single developmental stage to fulfill the learner’s subjective needs and ambitions in the complex process of developing his or her intercultural self. By emphasizing the developmental nature of the model in terms of clearly defined and sequenced stages, the DMIS seems to provide a comprehensive learning model for students that, according to Bennett, guarantees the progressive development of their subjective intercultural competence, provided that their learning process goes through the different stages in the prescribed manner. However, the DMIS is often premised on hypothetical claims for which no evidence is provided. For example, when Bennett (1993: 39) warns against the introduction of the notion of cultural relativity at the “superiority” stage (which constitutes a sub-stage of “defense”) “as an antidote to bigotry and aggrandizement,” he suggests that “excessive discussion of cultural differences in behavior or values may backfire, leading people toward more intense superiority or into retreat to denigration” (Bennett 1993: 39). In a similar vein, he frequently warns of “skipping ahead” (Bennett 1993: 41) to a later stage in the DMIS for fear it might be counterproductive and cause the learner to revert to an earlier stage, since he or she is ostensibly not yet developmentally ready for those more complex developmental stages (e.g., Bennett 1993: 39; 41; 46; 47, etc.). Furthermore, the DMIS is conceived from the point of view of the teacher and trainer, and not the learner; the model thus focuses on a description of concepts, strategies and techniques of how to create a learning environment that may facilitate the fostering of intercultural sensitivity. As such, the model cannot guarantee that the development envisaged will actually result in “intercultural sensitivity development and personal growth” (Bennett 1993: 66). The DMIS does not address the question of how learners actually develop intercultural sensitivity in their minds, bodies, and selves when they are going through the various stages of development anticipated in the model. In fact, the learners in this model are only imagined in cognitive and behavioral terms, while the complex psychological and emotional domains of learning and development are largely ignored. Thus, the DMIS cannot fully achieve its stated intention of constructively focusing on learners’ complex experiences of cultural difference (cf. above), which clearly have profound psychological, identity-related, and emotional implications for each learner. Instead of focusing on the learner’s subjective development of intercultural sensitivity in all its complex dimensions (see, for example, Byram 1997, or Deardorff 2011), the DMIS rather seems to provide a curricular model for teachers and trainers based on a linear process of learning with prescribed

322 | 10 Mediating and assessing intercultural competence in the L2 classroom stages which the learner must complete in order to achieve intercultural sensitivity; it seems to suggest concepts and principles which teachers and trainers could employ to ensure that learners can actually accomplish the different stages. Therefore, Bennett’s DMIS is not so much an acquisition model with developmental learning stages as a descriptive curricular model in which the proposed stages are merely convenient ways of organizing a syllabus aimed at fostering intercultural sensitivity. The model also has other weaknesses, particularly if applied to the development of intercultural competence in L2 learning (for which it was originally not intended but is now frequently used). The absolute disregard for the role of languages in the process of developing intercultural competence is its biggest drawback, since in L2 learning intercultural sensitivity is developed to a large extent with and through the other language as the central semiotic system of the foreign culture. This posits considerable challenges for the learner in terms of the linguistic system and inherent conceptualizations, but also in terms of its socioculturally appropriate use in terms of social indexing, genre, Discourses, metaphors, frames, narratives, contextualization cues, and habitus. Another shortcoming of DMIS is the tendency to operate with fixed (rather than dynamic) categories and the failure to integrate the hugely important third space into the model. Therefore, Bennett’s DMIS has to be reconceptualized with a view to describing the pedagogic principles for progressively mediating and fostering intercultural competence in the context of second language learning.

10.2 Mediating intercultural competence in the L2 classroom – A model of progressive principles This section will introduce pedagogic principles intended to integrate these considerations. In contrast to the developmental model of Milton Bennett (1986, 1993), it refers specifically to L2 learning, rather than to a professional context. Fundamental concepts, such as the intercultural third space, inner speech, constructs of identity, genre, D/discourse, positionings, and plausibility structures, all absent from Bennett’s model, will be integrated. However, the model is not intended as a prescriptive guideline in a performative dimension with a clearly defined framework of assessable descriptors and standards of culture learning (with the implication that cultural attributes are defined in essentialist manner), as, for example, the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (Council of Europe 2001) or U.S. National Standards for Foreign Language Learning (http://www.actfl.org/publications/all/national-standards-foreign-languageeducation) provide; it is rather intended as a descriptive model of principles and

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developments which can inform and guide the deliberate fostering of subjective intercultural competence in the L2 classroom (and beyond). Such a model can not only be useful for the engaged L2 student who is cognizant of the development of subjective attributes of the third place, but also for curriculum planners and teachers who may be unsure how intercultural competence develops in the minds of L2 learners and how to facilitate, foster, and scaffold these developments.³ When the following model uses the terminology of progressive principles, it does so with an understanding that these principles are not mutually exclusive, just as they are not in L1 acquisition. Of course, the transitions between these principles are dynamic, and the learning process is not always progressive in a linear way, but can be cyclical, functionally interdependent, and even occasionally regressive; it can provide different paths to the same outcome (equifinality) and one path to multiple outcomes (multifinality) (cf. Spitzberg and Changnon 2009: 5). The terminology of a progressive set of principles does not imply achieving the intended outcomes by simply ticking off proposed activities, but the focus on the learner’s subjective ZPD includes the possibility of repetition, regression, and revisitation of previous principles, as well as leapfrogging certain elements included in principles (possibly with a view of revisiting them at a later stage with a different and more competent perspective). Techniques, methods, strategies, technologies, and tasks for facilitating particular learning processes within certain principles are varied, but they are all aimed at offering creative learning environments which provide ample experiential opportunities for the learner to engage in activities and projects which are meaningful for his or her current level of learning with a view of looking ahead to the next ZPD of the L2 learner; they include texts, images, critical incidents, diaries, journals, portfolios, role plays, films, project work, cultural games, scenarios, but also activities mediated by electronic media such as Facebook, Twitter, Email (Tandem), Skype, and Internet discussion forums. Electronic media have the advantage of facilitating direct access to members of other cultural communities, and, when pedagogically

3 In a survey of secondary and post-secondary teachers of German in the United States, 67% of the 777 respondents claimed they had “received no specific pedagogical training for the teaching of cultural awareness, understanding or competence” (Schulz and Ganz 2010: 188). In addition 30.8% of respondents “did not feel adequately prepared in teaching cultural perspectives” (Schulz and Ganz 2010: 188), and 45.6% of the 557 respondents to this question were “very or somewhat dissatisfied with the preparation they received for developing their students’ intercultural awareness, understanding and competence” (Schulz and Ganz 2010: 181). These results clearly indicate that existing teacher training courses need to be improved with regard to mediating and assessing intercultural competence, as well as providing adequate intercultural teaching/learning materials.

324 | 10 Mediating and assessing intercultural competence in the L2 classroom managed in a careful and sensible manner, they can contribute in a major way to increase learner’s preparedness to invest time and effort in the L2 learning processes. They can also greatly contribute to developing aspects of intercultural competence through direct dialogue with cultural others, as well as retrospective reflection on authentic views and experiences of partners, who are situated in another culture and therefore apply a different cultural frame of reference in their (inter-)actions. By keeping a journal or diary throughout the learning process of their experiences, thoughts, emotions, fantasies, and action orientations when encountering real or fictionalized others, learners are in a position to assess retrospectively the degrees of cultural and linguistic adequacy and appropriateness for the manner in which they have responded to these (real or imagined) cultural others (cf. Brenner 2012: 131). This procedure enables learners to metacognitively evaluate their own learning processes. Within different principles, the various modes of learning provide learners with multiple and diverse opportunities for direct and indirect contact with the target culture, allowing for thoughtful, subjective, and collaborative engagement to gradually develop an understanding of the other (and also the L1-mediated) culture as well as more direct experiential engagement with aspects of the target culture; thus, learners are encouraged to develop the ability to discover and understand salient features of the context which influence meaning for communicative acts within and across cultures. Therefore, although the model understands the overall learning process as progressive and dynamic negotiation for and acquisition of intercultural knowledge, skills, and abilities; it can at times be regressive and revert to aspects of a previous principle of learning. Hence, the terminology of principles is only used for the purpose of analytical presentability; it is preferred to the concepts of stages and phases because it implies that principles have no fixed endpoint of development, as intercultural competence is a porous and dynamic concept without a clearly definable end-product of, for instance, the interculturally most competent person. The model of pedagogic principles for fostering intercultural competence in the L2 classroom in an increasingly comprehensive manner does not intend to imply to represent distinct learning stages of developing intercultural competence; they are designed to be descriptive and cannot guarantee learners’ acquisition of intercultural third places by means of blending spaces. The orientation of the model is not developmental but curricular, that is, addressed to teachers, trainers, and educational policy makers. The efforts of learning have, of course, to be made the students themselves, but the structured and experientially-based L2 classroom can provide a wide range of activities to foster intercultural competence in a carefully guided way. The model therefore proposes principles of how to conveniently shape curriculum and instruction, based on insights from research in a variety of cognate fields (as presented in the previous chapters).

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A model such as the following cannot provide concrete recipes for immediate teaching practice, nor can it claim validity for culture-specific and institutional peculiarities. It also cannot claim universal validity because it has been developed primarily in and for a Western cultural and learning context, and even here there exist, of course, differences between sociocultural practices.⁴ What such a model can provide, however, are general principles (rather than prescriptive rules) of mediating intercultural competence which can inform the framework of teaching and fostering (and to a lesser extent assessing; cf. Section 10.3) intercultural competence. More concrete adaptation and modification has to be carried out according to the specific spatio-temporal conditions, institutional traditions, and the particular interests and ambitions of the subjective learners with regard to their learning of a second language and developing an intercultural frame of reference. It also has to be acknowledged that the model contains speculative elements which are based on the research findings presented in the preceding chapters; only some elements have been empirically tested. Therefore, it remains a desideratum to examine the model in long-term empirical research. Principle 1 – Acknowledging ignorance Human beings typically grow up and live within a culturally structured world. In order to become full members of a cultural community they have to internalize culturally created and intersubjectively (symbolically, mainly linguistically) mediated systems of meaning, beliefs, and significance so that they are able to organize their lives and social relations (cf. Chapters 2–4). Purely monocultural societies are no longer the norm in postmodern times; due to worldwide activities of migration and the economic, political, technological, and cultural forces of globalization, many children nowadays grow up in multicultural societies. Thus, they may be exposed to more than one cultural community and its particular signifying practices and ways of doing things. This exposure to different cultures does not mean that cultural boundaries are insuperable (as multiculturalists want us to believe) nor that they are dissolved and, as a consequence, the individual grows up as a global citizen, who is not influenced by nor loyal to a particular culture (as transculturalists want us to believe; cf. Chapter 8). Growing up and

4 There are many other factors in second language and culture learning which are relevant to success, other than merely the didactics and methodology used in the L2 classroom. These are too specific to be analyzed here, but some should not go unmentioned. These factors include: age, motivation, attitudes, institutional traditions, social background, cultural distance, gender, personality, group-dynamics, quality of intake, learner types, sociocultural traditions, sociolinguistic conceptualization of time, room, individual, society, and many others.

326 | 10 Mediating and assessing intercultural competence in the L2 classroom living in a multicultural society means that minority cultures and the majority culture still have their respective internal coherence and identity. The mind of the child, growing into his or her native culture, be it the minority or the majority culture in a multicultural society, is still formed by the cultural systems of meaning, norms, beliefs, and attitudes of his or her primary (or native) cultural community. However, socialization into a minority culture typically implies that the subject becomes aware of certain constructs and ways of life of the majority culture; the reverse can also be true for someone socialized into the majority culture, but typically to a lesser degree because he or she might not feel the necessity to engage with the cultural other. Therefore, the individual who grows up in a minority culture may be culturally more aware and enjoy access to cultural others. This constellation does not imply, however, that the members of the minority culture will internalize the cultural patterns of the majority culture; on the contrary, they may challenge assumptions of the majority culture from the basis of the internalized norms, values, and beliefs of the minority culture. Of course, they can also challenge certain aspects of their native culture due to access to constructs of both the minority and the majority culture, as is now happening in Britain, for example, where many young Indian and Pakistani women (and men) are challenging the traditional concept of arranged marriage.⁵ A precondition for challenging aspects of life in any culture, minority or majority, is the cultural selfassuredness and cultural identity of the subject. In order to be in a position to constructively engage in cultural dialogue, the subject must have acquired and internalized cultural systems of meaning, belief, and emotion so that he or she has at his or her disposal a deeply held system of reference for the purpose of assessing and judging elements of other cultures, and of the native culture.⁶ These culturally constituted systems, together with the social experience of the individual as being an integral part of a community (for example, in terms of language, culture, religion, tradition, gender, ethnicity, morality, etc.), also constitute the identity of the subject, which is not a notion internal to the individual,

5 For a discussion of literary accounts of arranged marriages see Bredella (2012: 124–140). 6 In rare cases of the perceived superiority of the majority culture, a critical assessment of one’s culture may be intentionally suppressed, and one’s native culture may be elevated above any cultural-relative notions. This situation is common for imperial powers; therefore, for instance, the Hungarian-born British author George Mikes pokes gentle fun at the English, including their sense of cultural superiority and British-centerdness – up to a point where an English person living in Budapest claims that Hungarians are the foreigners, not her: “’I, a foreigner? What a silly thing to say. I am English. You are the foreigner.’ [. . . ] ‘In Budapest, too?’ I asked her. ‘Everywhere’, she declared with determination. ‘Truth does not depend on geography. What is true in England is also true in Hungary [. . . ]’” (Mikes 1966: 11–12).

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but is suspended in an area of tension between the subjective and the collective (both understood as multilayered and dynamic concepts) (cf. Chapters 2–4). This culturally shaped identity provides the subject with a basis for conscious action and subconscious emotion. Both are experienced as something unique to the individual and to the community in which he or she is participating. Hence, the concepts of culture and identity imply boundaries that can be accepted, rejected, challenged, or contested. However, before the basic conclusion of the parallel processes of lingualization, socialization, and enculturation after adolescence, the monolingual subject relies primarily (sometimes exclusively) on the internalized systems of meaning and belief for the activities of thinking, feeling, (inter-)acting, experiencing, memorizing, fantasizing, and desiring. Therefore, the position of the subject at the beginning of the process of learning the second language at school (typically between the ages of four and nine years old) is characterized by a situation that is dominated by the shaping influence of the first language, culture, and community. The internalized L1-mediated cultural patterns of meaning, emotion, and behavior in primary socialization are reconfigured and re-emphasized in secondary socialization in terms of consciously and intentionally acquiring knowledge of linguistic categories, genres, concepts, Discourses, frames, and schemata (cf. Chapters 3 & 4). For acts of meaning (or signifying practices), monolingual subjects typically apply the acquired L1-mediated values, norms, attitudes, beliefs, rules, and patterns of construal of their cultural community which they naively assume to be universally valid, at least in the early stages of socialization. This dominance of the internalized L1-related concepts and cultural patterns, which goes hand in hand with a non-awareness or ignorance of alternative cultural systems of meaning and significance, is normally characteristic of the initial period of beginning to learn a L2.⁷ The typical monolingual and monocultural learner is, at this stage, unaware of the relativity of linguistic and sociocultural configurations, because access to these, be it on holidays abroad or by contact with cultural others at home, such as immigrants living in the L1 society, is very limited in the sense that normally the mental dominance of the native cultural constructs is not challenged and hence not qualified.⁸ Monocultural speakers continue to think and

7 The term “normally” is used here because in postmodern times most societies are no longer monolingual and monocultural. However, the typical citizen remains basically monolingual in his or her acts of construal before learning a L2 in secondary school (cf. Kordes 1991; Gogolin 1994), even if he or she has contact with members of other cultures, be it in his or her homeland or on holidays abroad. 8 This statement is also true for many members of minority cultures living in a multicultural society with regard to their exposure to the language of the majority culture which is normally also

328 | 10 Mediating and assessing intercultural competence in the L2 classroom speak with “the established knowledge of their native community and society, the stock of metaphors this community lives by, and the categories they use to represent their experiences” (Kramsch 1993: 43). This constellation ensures effortless acts of thinking, feeling, and behaving, and smooth interaction with intracultural others because the shared pool of acquired cultural and linguistic patterns of behavior makes interaction predictable for the interlocutors and facilitates a hassle-free intersubjective diffusion of cognitive and emotional spaces among interlocutors. This ease of intracultural intersubjective understanding in terms of cognition, emotion, and behavior, and the resulting sense of wellbeing, loyalty, and psychological security, reduce the subjective need to engage with alternative systems of meaning, significance, action, and emotion. The term ignorance, used to denominate this first principle, implies that the person is not aware of, or sensitive to, the validity of alternative construals of “reality.”⁹ If confronted with these, they are simply integrated into the acquired patterns of construal of his or her native language and culture, thus eliminating the Other in its authenticity. As long as people are not intrinsically interested in other languages and cultures, they will at best only register other cultural concepts and configurations, but remain basically indifferent, and therefore their internalized cultural constructs will not be challenged. This may even be the case for members of a minority culture within a multicultural society who, at the beginning of formal schooling, normally have to learn the language of the majority culture in a structured manner, but may remain loyal to the internalized cultural patterns of significance, belief, behavior, and emotion of their primary community. The preparedness to intrinsically engage with another linguistic and cultural system of meaning is therefore dependent on circumstances or experiences that interrupt the intracultural and monolingual comfort zone of the individual. These circumstances and experiences can be very wide-ranging, for example, migration to another cultural community (be it for work or other reasons), perceived injustices inflicted by members of other cultures, perceived economic, social, or academic advantages of speaking a second (or subsequent) language(s), adoption of another cultural, religious, or social identity, and many others.

the official language of the state. Frequently, the majority language is not actively learned before schooling, and even then there may be reluctance due to the fear of losing one’s cultural identity, which may, in turn, result in the creation of a hybrid (or creole) language such as Turkspeak (cf. Section 6.4). 9 The term “ignorance” seems to capture this constellation more adequately than the term “denial” of diversity which Bennett (1993: 30–34) uses for the initial stage of developing intercultural sensitivity. The term “denial” implies an active-intentional component because one can only deny what one is aware of.

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One of the main reasons for learning a second language, however, is schooling, because in most (Western) legislations at least one foreign language is on the syllabus for some primary and most secondary schools; therefore they are compulsory for students.¹⁰ The element of compulsion to learn a second language, however, does frequently not per se create the ambition to deeply and intrinsically engage with the school subject at hand; on the contrary, the fact that the requirement to learn a school subject necessitates the investment of time and serious academic effort at an age when adolescent learners might have other interests and preferences, may lead the individual to resist this perceived pressure, for instance, by not seriously engaging in the learning process. In the typical context of institutional schooling, this preparedness to invest time and effort into acquiring cultural capital is, at the beginning, present to varying degrees, and sometimes may not be noticeable at all.¹¹ There are many factors which influence the degree of dedication from students, including the perceived usefulness of the school subject for personal, social, or professional purposes, the attitudes and choices of peers (i.e., peer pressure), the ability of the teacher and of the learning materials to stimulate and enthuse the student, and, in the case of L2 learning, the level of perceived attractiveness of the target language, culture, and society. However, among the main factors are the social background of the student’s family and their preschool learning experiences, particularly with regard to literary practices. These two factors are closely linked, as, for example, Heath (1983; 2009) has shown in the long-term ethnographic study she conducted in the Piedmont Carolinas area in the United States of America (Heath 1983: 18). Heath (2009: 347) compared the manners in which parents “socialize their pre-school children into a literacy orientation” in three distinct social communities which she describes as white middle-class, white working-class, and African-American working-class communities. Although this classification can be criticized as crude (since it does not consider any variation and overlap between these communities and also pays insufficient attention to individual trajectories), Heath could convincingly show

10 The only EU member states where foreign language learning is not compulsory in state schools are Scotland and Ireland. 11 The concept of willingness to invest in “cultural capital” (Bourdieu 1997) is preferred to that of “motivation” because it puts emphasis on the sociocultural context which influences the degree of investment. Thus, the sociological concept of investment emphasizes the complex identities of learners and “seeks to make meaningful connections between a learner’s desire and commitment to learn a language and change their identities” (Norton and Toohey 2011: 420). By contrast, the concept of “motivation” operates with psychological categories which are located within the subject which is perceived to have a unitary and fixed personality.

330 | 10 Mediating and assessing intercultural competence in the L2 classroom that there are significant differences in the quantity and quality of children’s exposure to literature by parents reading to them and, hence, introducing them to ways of dealing with life in terms of skills, such as being able to be patient, suspend reality, ascribe “fiction-like status to everyday objects” (Heath 2009: 345), use communicative structures, decontextualize issues, and reconfigure them in a different context, and being aware of narrative tropes. Of the three social groups examined, unsurprisingly, the white middle-class children had the most intensive exposure to literature in terms of quantity and quality, followed by white working-class children who were, however, not exposed to the same genre of fantasy-based stories but more to simpler fact-related narratives. In contrast to middle-class parents, white working-class adults “do not, upon seeing an item or event in the real world, remind children of a similar event in a book and launch a running commentary on similarities and differences” (Heath 2009: 352). Hence, children are denied the possibility of becoming aware of the richness of possible worlds, as presented in fiction, and their possible links to reality. Heath (2009: 353; emphasis in the original) comments: “Any fictionalized account of a real event is viewed as a lie; reality is better than fiction. (. . . ) Thus, children cannot decontextualize their knowledge or fictionalize events known to them and shift them about into other frames.” African-American working-class children were, according to Heath, rarely exposed to literature at home; instead, they were immersed in rich and constant “human talk and noise from the television, stereo, and radio” (Heath 2009: 354). This enabled them to develop complex and creative oral skills in terms of playing with language, for instance, through rhyming and storytelling, even if “there are no reading materials especially for children” (Heath 2009: 354). However, children were not given any scaffolding by their parents to make connections between real-life situations and their own playful use of language, since parents felt it was inadvisable for them to “simplify their language, focus on single-word utterances by young children, label items or features of objects” (Heath 2009: 357). Thus, when starting school, these children were confronted by a completely unfamiliar learning environment. Whereas a few children from this group learned the interactional literacy skills necessary for successful passage through mainstream school, the majority did not adapt to the new learning environment. According to Heath (2009: 358): “[T]he majority not only fail to learn the content of lessons, but also do not adopt the social-interactional rules for school literacy events. Print in isolation has little authority in their world. The kinds of questions asked about reading books are unfamiliar.” However, the skills and abilities which these African-American children learned in their families were ignored by mainstream school: “The children’s abilities to link metaphorically two events or situations and to recreate scenes are not tapped in the school; in fact, these abilities often

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cause difficulties, because they enable to see parallels teachers did not intend, indeed, may not recognize until the children point them out” (Heath 2009: 358; emphasis in the original). As Heath could show, early socialization and lingualization (in terms of orality and literacy) has a profound effect on how children engage and perform in school. Children who are exposed to oral and written language by their parents in a creative, imaginative, regular, and interactive manner could easily deal with the requirements of mainstream school, because they were well prepared and used to learning and interacting with written texts in ways expected of them in school. This is the case to a much lesser degree for white working-class children due to the type of texts (if any) they were exposed to in their family and the way these texts were dealt with (if at all). The children with an African-American working-class background face totally unfamiliar types of questions, exercises, and interactions at school, because their primary socialization did not put great value on literacy and child-directed language and learning scenarios, since children were linguistically treated like adults. Hence, according to Heath, the degree of success in school is clearly predetermined for these children by the way they were brought up in their family before starting school. However, mainstream school is orientated around the expectations and requirements of the educated middle class (at least in Western cultures).¹² Thus, it sidelines working-class children by not allowing for the particular skills and abilities they have acquired in their family homes. Clearly, there is a need to address this issue by adapting institutional schooling, at least in the primary levels, to accommodate the experiences, needs, and aspirations of children who have experienced their primary socialization in marginal communities. The research by Heath and others has clearly shown that learners have enjoyed potentially very different kinds of primary socialization, instilling in them various degrees of ability to learn in the manner expected of them in institutionalized schooling. The ability to learn efficiently includes different skills, such as study skills (e.g., maintaining attention; using available materials for independent learning; grasping the intention of tasks and exercises; working effectively with peers; organizing materials; organizing one’s learning strategies), heuristic skills (e.g., coming to terms with new experiences; observing, analyzing,

12 As Bracher (2006: 19) points out, some African-Americans define their identity in opposition to the white majority culture. The U.S. African-American students who excel at school may be accused of being traitors to their own heritage and identity in favor of the white man’s. Thus, success in school may be seen as joining the opposition, and some students may therefore deliberately underachieve in school.

332 | 10 Mediating and assessing intercultural competence in the L2 classroom inferencing, finding, and understanding new information; using new technologies), communicative skills (e.g., using appropriate register and voice; adequate positioning of self and other; understanding, sending out, and responding to contextualization cues; constructing intersubjective spaces; using genre; analyzing Discourse; using conceptual metaphors; constructing narratives; understanding and using frames; prompting assistance from others, if needed); sociolinguistic skills (e.g., use of politeness; linguistic codification of certain fundamental social rituals; paying attention to social norms in terms of norms of relation between generations, sexes, or social groups); pragmatic skills (e.g., appropriate communicative behavior in particular situations, drawing on scripts or scenarios of intersubjective exchanges; mastery of D/discourse, cohesion, and coherence). All of these skills are typically acquired in primary socialization, albeit subjectively to various degrees. Of course, at the start of (and throughout) schooling, pupils are not accomplished members of the speech community; their personalities are still developing, and therefore each of these skills is explicitly developed and expanded in secondary socialization (cf. Section 2.4) so that pupils become increasingly competent in their appropriate use. However, a precondition for learning in secondary socialization is the preparedness to invest time and effort into exploring new information and new experiences, complemented by the willingness to take initiatives or even risks in exploring new perspectives and new spaces. Although this kind of preparedness is ideally encouraged and reaffirmed throughout schooling, it develops to different degrees among students so that the efforts of the learning community are characterized by a mix of differently developed skills, competences, and preparedness to invest in the learning process. The fostering of intercultural competence exploits these pre-existing skills and competences with a view of intentionally developing them further by enabling students to construct their linguistic and cultural identity by gradually integrating increasingly diversified experiences of otherness. This might also include encounters of linguistic and cultural diversity which, for instance, learners in multicultural societies may have previously experienced or are experiencing during the time of their learning. For these reasons, the structure and content of the initial L2 classes cannot be overestimated in their relevance for stimulating learners’ intrinsic interest and preparedness to invest time and effort in sustained learning for the new school subject. Of course, willingness to invest time and engage in learning activities is not a stable feature; it is a dynamic trait which is strongly influenced by the respective social and learning environments to which learners are exposed, including the variety, purposefulness, and relevance of the learning activities. Engaging and stimulating classes which provide a variety of meaningful configurations to be explored by learners and which are offered through different

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media and social forms of learning, as well as being a pleasure to attend, can create, maintain, or recalibrate the preparedness to invest time and effort in a very positive manner. Principle 2 – First contact with the second language and culture in the classroom The L2 learners do not enter the L2 classroom as blank slates; normally, they have already acquired the L1 (and possibly other languages) during primary socialization, including the social habitus and the cultural patterns in which the L1 is embedded. Typically, this would have been achieved in different manners and to different degrees of creativity and literacy, including the socially appropriate use of metaphors, contextualization cues, genres, D/discourses, frames, and narratives. Before starting to learn the foreign language, the learner will normally have heard and seen something about the foreign culture, be it on TV or the Internet, or among the family or friends. Thus, “By the time learners begin the study of a L2 context and its culture, they have already formed certain concepts, stereotypes, and expectations about L2 cultural realities. These expectations are not fixed and immutable. But they will influence the way learners comprehend and interpret a L2 culture (C2)” (Savignon and Sysoyev 2002: 510). These stereotypes and concepts can have an impact on the perceived value of the foreign language and culture from the point of view of the subject (and hence on his or her preparedness to invest in and engage with the learning process) and the L2 speech community in general; media in particular have a huge influence on how cultures are presented in the public perception, thus generating an image of particular cultures in the cultural memory of a speech community which is very difficult to change or deconstruct. For example, Alice Kaplan, a professor in French at Yale University, describes in her autobiography that after the death of her father, her mother considered moving to France. This prospect immediately evoked very positive image of France in her imagination: “I imagined a house near the water. (. . . ) I can see myself there underneath a palm tree. I will be a French girl, like Madeline in the Madeline books (. . . )” (Kaplan 1993: 31; cited in Schumann 1997: 113). Young Kaplan projects here the image of France and French life, as portrayed in children books she read as a child, onto the desired hypothetical life in France. This positive image of France certainly contributed to Kaplan’s ambition to learn French, although she and her mother never actually moved to France at the time. However, having a positive image of the culture and language of the other speech community can have a powerful influence on the ambition to actually learn the language. Another reason, which in fact also drove Kaplan’s interest in learning French, is the desire to escape from the perceived dreariness of the L1 world that can be very restrictive for young teenagers: “Precisely because

334 | 10 Mediating and assessing intercultural competence in the L2 classroom they learn the foreign language in isolation from the real world, these youngsters project onto it their dissatisfactions with their own and their dreams of a better world. Language for them is not just an unmotivated formal construct but a lived embodied reality” (Kramsch 2009a: 6). However, once the learner has decided on learning a particular L2, the encounter with the L2 takes place on a very concrete level which is very different from the general stereotypes acquired during socialization. The very first contact with the target language and culture, as mediated in the classroom, can have a strong affective impact on subjective and communal constructs of identity (cf. Section 9.6). For the first time, the learner consciously experiences that one cannot express oneself in the subconscious and automated manner of the L1, because, in this early phase of L2 learning, the means of expressing one’s spontaneous ideas in the L2 medium have not yet been internalized; learners at this very early period of L2 learning look at the second language as a system to be learned and not (yet) through it in terms of cultural meanings. In addition, the learner has to produce the “strange” noises of the L2 in the classroom for all of his or her peers to hear. This experience can be deeply disturbing, especially in the difficult ontogenetic stage of adolescence when the learner may be unsure of his or her constructs of personal and social identity. The carefully constructed social prestige and selfimage can be put at risk by the learner being reduced to stuttering and use of “inadequate” words and sounds when trying to express utterances in the L2 in the presence of peers. These learners may perceive the L2 as a threat to their integrity and identity as subjects. If they reluctantly learn the L2, they often find themselves in a situation characterized as follows: “What drives them to learn the forms but retain their own accent and grammar is a deep desire to preserve what is theirs” (Kramsch 2009a: 15). This potentially face-threatening aspect of early L2 learning can be softened by consciously enhancing learners’ self-esteem through, for example, engaging learners in organizing the classroom as an integral community of practice, offering a relaxed, constructive, and comfortable space for the learners to negotiate for new meanings and to fill the gaps that are opened up by the engagement with the Other. Kohonen (2001: 38) comments: In a sense, the learner appears childish and makes a fool of himself when he makes mistakes. A person with a reasonably balanced self-concept can cope with these demands better. (. . . ) [A] person who is ready to accept with tolerance and patience the frustrations of ambiguity is in a better position to cope with them than a learner who feels frustrated in ambiguous situations.

The “reasonably balanced self-concept” can be brought into the first L2 class, as it may have developed during primary socialization and fostered in school prior to the start of L2 learning; but it can also be developed in the space of the

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L2 classroom through collaborative efforts of negotiating for meaning, including negotiating for new concepts of self. However, the self-concept or self-identity, even if it was previously seen and experienced by the subject as “reasonably balanced,” can become unbalanced by the first encounter with the second language in the L2 classroom, as Kramsch suggests: “For young people who are seeking to define their linguistic identity and their position in the world, the language class is often the first time they are consciously and explicitly confronted with the relationship between their language, their thoughts, and their bodies” (Kramsch 2009: 4–5). It is the quality of language as the tool for voluntary thought and its structuring qualities for ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving, including the necessity of physically producing unusual L2 sounds and sound patterns, that makes the impact of L2 learning so consequential for the learner. The unbalancing of the “reasonably balanced self-concept,” triggered for the learner by negotiating different linguistic expressions and constructs and their cultural contexts, is a necessary step for rebalancing the concept of self, which is no longer located in the culture and language of the L1 speech community but in the evolving third space. This development is aided by the fact that in the typical months and years of first encountering the L2 in the institutional context of schooling (i.e., the difficult years of adolescence), the identity of learners is subject to many changes, due to the strategic moves of positionings in preparation for adulthood. Here, the perceived threat of losing face can have an adverse effect on the willingness to further engage with learning the L2. Typically, in subsequent classes, these learners tend to depend more on teacher-directed work, do not “assume an active role during the course” (Kohonen 2001: 52), and find L2 work demanding and distressing. Consequently, these learners might decide to withdraw from active participation in class and reassure their selves by monolingual means in a monocultural environment. In this situation, the facilitators of L2 learning, the teachers and institutions, have to be cognizant of the impact of L2 learning on construct of identities, but also of the impact of the L2 classroom on the display of learners’ identities (cf. Section 9.6). Since institutional L2 teaching and learning typically take place for learners when they are in their adolescence, i.e., in a difficult period of constructing identities between childhood and adulthood, which is characterized by developing their selves in comparison to significant others, their display of self to a group of peers may be very different from their image of self conveyed to family or teachers. This situation often results in a situation where learners strategically perform their identity in the classroom: they may appear interested and eager to learn in the classroom but very disinterested when interacting with their peers who may view academic interest and success as nerdy. Based on this observation, Taylor et al. (2013: 5) suggest that the notion of self has several components which

336 | 10 Mediating and assessing intercultural competence in the L2 classroom can be differentiated according to internal and external dimensions. The private (internal) self relates to a person’s intimate representation of self-attributes (both actual and aspirational), whereas the public (external) selves are socially displayed, according to the relational context or audience (this aspect has also actual and possible dimensions, for example, displaying the self according to presumed impositions, expectations and ambitions of others). In their large-scale empirical study with 4,151 students and 157 teachers across four European countries, Taylor and her colleagues (2013) found significant differences in student achievement based on the level they could display their private selves in the classroom; the degree of bringing their private selves into the classroom community largely depended on the teacher’s appreciation of the student’s subjective identity in class. If the classroom did not provide for a relaxed, nurturing, and encouraging atmosphere and did not allow students to speak as their private selves, to bring their interests, fears, and desires into classroom discussions, students tended to strategically display their external identity traits, hence disengaging their inner selves from the learning process. If, however, students were encouraged and supported in their learning efforts, and were also encouraged to bring in their private selves, the learning process was much more relevant and meaningful for the learners. Even academically disengaged students could be encouraged to bring their inner selves into the learning process “by showing students the subject (. . . ) can be personally relevant and enriching, so that an initial tendency to please by showing a possibly superficial academic interest may be internalized and adopted as a personally relevant goal” (Taylor et al. 2013: 17). Thus, the levels of (dis-)engagement in the L2 learning process and learning activities are very dynamic and may be influenced (and even reversed) by the classroom atmosphere which should be characterized by mutual trust, openness, respectfulness for private selves (also for the teacher and relevant others), and personally enriching learning activities. Levels of student engagement are dynamic, as are constructs of identity; the L2 classroom, especially in the early stages of L2 learning, should try to engage learners holistically and should provide a trustful atmosphere so that learners can open up their private selves to engagement in the learning experience with a view of developing new identity positions. In such a constructive and supportive L2 learning environment, the initial encounter with different expressions, sounds, and constructs of the other language and culture is much more likely to be experienced by learners as having a liberating effect on the mind. Learners can use the L2 as a medium in a playful and poetic manner because the grammar, the sounds, and the meanings are not yet fully understood. The production of unfamiliar sounds, prosodic patterns, and unconventional meaning can be a pleasure to explore because the learner is transgressing the phonological and semantic patterns of the L1. Sounds and

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meaning can be playfully combined in ways unintended by the L2 system, for example, relating the sound of the English eye to the phonetically identical but semantically different German Ei [egg]. This kind of playfulness in making connections between items of the L1 and L2 can also serve as an important mnemonic trick to store the lexical item in an original and therefore more effective manner in one’s memory, thus helping to build up a lexical and phonetic memory which, at this early stage of learning, is necessary to bridge the gap in referential relation between the linguistic signs and the objects or events they denote. The distance to the other language can be a pleasure and fun to explore, because the gaps between the languages can, for the moment, be filled in unconventional and imaginative ways. It can also generate the satisfying experience that one can express oneself, albeit in a simple manner, in a different medium to that of the L1, thus assuming another linguistic frame of reference for the purposes of construing and performing one’s self. By using the L2, the learner has the opportunity to take on a different voice which may have repercussions for the construction of identity, but also for the subjective (conscious and subconscious) construction and blending of spaces with regard to perceptions, emotions, and attitudes. Because the efforts of construction are necessarily executed in a very unconventional manner at this very early phase of learning the L2, new layers of meaning may be uncovered by and for the acting subject with respect to the L2, but also the L1, and most importantly, for the interlingual and intercultural spaces that are beginning to open up. These new meanings offer, at least to some extent, an escape from the normality and conformity of one’s everyday life: Seduced by the foreign sounds, rhythms, and meanings, and by the ‘coolness’ of the language as it is spoken by native speakers, many adolescent learners strive to enter new, exotic worlds, where they can be or at least pretend to be someone else, where they too can become ‘cool’ and inhabit their bodies in more powerful ways. (Kramsch 2009a:16)

The first encounter with the second language can also generate an awareness of language as a symbolic system. The terms used to denote objects or events in the first language are different from those used in the second language, and there is often no systematic reasoning behind the constitution of these terms; they are obviously used as symbolic form in an arbitrary manner in a language (even if they are used in non-arbitrary manners within the language as a system). This realization by the learner, also with regard to his or her first language, can be a first step in the direction of recognizing relativity in terms of language and, by expansion, culture and thought, which may be exciting and thus stimulate deep subjective engagement in learning the other language, perhaps even leading to them having thoughts “they never had in their mother tongue” (Kramsch 2009a: 5).

338 | 10 Mediating and assessing intercultural competence in the L2 classroom Hence, the first encounter with the L2 which does not yet explicitly put emphasis on underlying cultural patterns, can evoke varying reactions in the learners; this reaction is also influenced by the actual classroom atmosphere in terms of degrees of openness to students’ interests, experiences, fears, and consideration of their inner selves. A positive reaction might be inquisitiveness and increased willingness, or even enthusiasm, to invest time and effort in the pleasurable and self-enriching experience of developing one’s cultural capital. A neutral reaction might be to sit back and await further developments and experiences. And a negative reaction might be to resist the perceived destabilizing impact of the L2 on one’s constructs of identity and to withdraw to the seemingly familiar and reassuring territory of the L1 and its sociocultural context. These reactions are not, of course, irreversible; they can be modified in subsequent learning processes, especially when learners are encouraged to bring their private selves into the classroom. However, it would be helpful if the teacher were aware of these possible reactions, and structure the initial encounter with the L2 in such a way that no-one will be exposed to potentially face-losing situations in the classroom, thus avoiding, or at least minimizing, the danger of provoking negative reactions in terms of discontinuing engagement and withdrawing to the assumed certainties of the L1 and its cultural context. A constructive approach to the initial encounter with the L2 could be, depending on the age-bracket and intentions of learners, the creation of a relaxed, non-threatening, playful, collaborative, inclusive, and explorative learning environment in which learners can trustfully bring in their private selves and try to find their own early voices in the L2 (in a metaphorical and in a literal sense). Principle 3 – Initial links to the life-world of learners While the previous principle centered on the first encounters with the second language and its different sounds, conceptualizations, and ways of structuring the social world, this principle is less concerned with looking at the L2 as a system and more with looking through the language at the underlying cultural frame of how experiences, things, and memories are constructed and expressed, and how intersubjective interaction is appropriately conducted. At this early period of L2 learning, processes of understanding the “reality” of the other speech community, as, for instance, portrayed in the L2 textbook, are still determined by the native cultural frame of reference so that the other culture may just be seen as different. L2 textbooks that are aligned to the communicative or intercultural approaches typically introduce a carefully constructed progression as to pragmatic communicative situations of everyday life, set in the target culture. This situational progression normally starts with introducing oneself to another person, using the socially appropriate and expected rituals of greeting, including set

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phrases of politeness and standard physical contact (if any). Both can vary greatly between cultures, and not applying them in the expected manner can, even at this early stage, negatively impact on one’s positioning (in the passive) before the first words are exchanged. In terms of physical contact, a handshake may be expected, or pecks on the cheek(s), an embrace, high five, elbow bump, tipping of the hat, bowing, etc. In terms of set phrases for greeting rituals, sometimes more than a simple “Good morning” or “Good afternoon” may be required, and even this may be different according to region. In many English-speaking communities, the additional “How are you?” is obligatory. However, a serious answer in terms of how one really feels (e.g., upbeat, subdued, ill, depressed, etc.) is not normally expected, as this phrase is just meant as a polite and superficial opener of potential small talk, or just a social acknowledgement of the other person. In German, however, this phrase is used in a different context, i.e., among friends, and for a different purpose, namely actually enquiring about the other’s condition. In more recently produced L2 textbooks of German, these subtle differences are explained for the L2 learner. For instance, the authors of “Deutsch? Na klar!” (Di Donato, Clyde, and Vansant 2004), a German textbook produced for the U.S. market, define the difference for the learner in a short “Kulturtipp” [cultural hint]: “German speakers will ask ‘Na, wie geht’s?’ or ‘Wie geht es Ihnen?’ only if they already know the person well. When you ask a native German speaker, be prepared for a detailed answer, particularly if the person is not feeling well” (Di Donato, Clyde, and Vansant 2004: 9). Although meant well, this “cultural hint” does refer to, but does not explain, the highly complex use of the informal “du” and the formal “Sie” which is used in German for indexing social or hierarchical distance (cf. Section 9.2). It also does not allude to the increasingly anglophone use of the phrase in the sense that a detailed answer is not always expected. Furthermore, explicit cultural tips such as the one mentioned above remain purely on a cognitive level; they are merely an add-on to the perceived main task of teaching and learning the L2, and this procedure may result in a situation where culture and language are treated separately in the L2 classroom. This constellation, however, could lend itself to the misperception on the part of the learners that language and culture are separate entities and therefore should be learned separately in the L2 classroom. Culture is always dynamic and distributed (cf. Chapter 7). Therefore, it cannot be strictly delimited from other cultures. There are always manifold overlaps and commonalities between cultures, for instance, in the area of the universals of human existence (birth, housing, love, eating, schooling, living in a community, etc.), common traditions in the legal framework of society (for instance, in Western societies), and in reactions to the process of globalization. Although these universal constructs are not identically realized in different cultures, they can provide certain spaces of overlap which can be used to facilitate cognitive (and

340 | 10 Mediating and assessing intercultural competence in the L2 classroom possibly affective) approximations to the other sociocultural constructs. These can be exploited in the L2 classroom by using forms of genre, frame, Discourse, and narrative that are similar, or in some instances even the same, across the cultures involved. The already known genres, Discourses, and narratives of the L1 speech community can be filled with voices from cultural others, and can thus be understood by the L2 learner not only in the very limited context of the actual pragmatic situation, but also in the wider context of the known social forms of constructing meaning. This can take the form of aligning oneself to a particular genre, Discourse, or narrative when positioning oneself in the L2 classroom community, or these forms can be explored in a pleasurable and creative manner by playing with words, positionings, and meanings, trying to fill the gaps that have opened up by the exploration of differential linguistic and sociocultural patterns of behavior. Furthermore, superficially similar spheres of peoples’ life-worlds (Lebenswelten) in different cultures can pave the way towards understanding aspects of the other culture and society which, at this early stage of the learning process, are mainly confined to the pragmatic level of fairly formulaic and standardized speech situations. On this basis, learners can draw meaningful comparisons between the similarities and differences of the L1 and L2-mediated constructs and configurations, for example, in relation to the pragmatic speech situations typical for situations such as In the Restaurant or At the Train Station, including inherent standardized speech roles.¹³ Cooperative and interactive work in small groups “entails working responsibly together towards both individual goals (individual accountability) and group goals (positive interdependence in the group)” (Kohonen 2001: 41), thus enhancing the social, interactive, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral skills and abilities of learners in intercultural learning. In a further step of collaborative learning, pragmatic situations can be designed for the purpose of acting them out in role plays by processes of accepting or distancing oneself from certain roles. Role play allows for a temporary and ambivalent liberation from the immediate

13 However, the social speech roles are filled with culturally different voices and adhere to a different cultural context. This may be a problem for regionally unspecific textbooks, as I experienced when teaching German in Nigeria and using a textbook that was produced in Germany. Many items mentioned in the textbook were unknown to the students, for instance, objects such as a cigarette vending machine, all sorts of fruit cake and fruit, maps, as well as the four seasons, and many other features. When, for instance, the textbook (Häussermann et al. 1983: 59–60) humorously plays with the incompatibility of consuming an apple cake (Apfelkuchen) with a ham sandwich (Schinkenbrot) in a café, students are at a loss to understand the nature of the incompatibility, unless it is transferred to their life-world (e.g., in terms of the West African food items eba and fufu), although this transfer evokes different cultural connotations (cf. Witte 1996: 287–288).

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constraints of the here and now of a situation; at the same time, it facilitates a new awareness of the original situation by temporarily adopting another (cultural) perspective (cf. Krüger 1999: 32). The use of role play in the L2 classroom can also contribute to the awareness that, although superficially similar, the comparable situations to the other culture are populated with different voices and people who may act differently to what is expected from the point of view of the native culture of the learners: The appropriation of new voices needs to take place in real-life contexts, which may be similar to L2 learners’ native language contexts, but because these contexts are now filled with different people, with different voices, they need to be re-appropriated. Second language learners should not be presented with a false sense of security regarding the existence of one shared reality such as the post office, the bank, the doctor’s office or with a false sense that if they master the grammatical rules and structures of the target language, they will automatically achieve mutual understanding with members of the target language culture. (Johnson 2004: 174)

The bases of this comparative procedure are, of course, the acquired patterns of construal and action of the native culture, because at this early phase of L2 learning target concepts are reduced and integrated into familiar L1-mediated constructs in the sense of a hermeneutical understanding of the Other (cf. Section 8.4). Accordingly, deeply ingrained, socioculturally generated ethnocentric attitudes, norms, and beliefs are still dominant for accessing the L2 world; they have not yet been qualified. The main purpose of this early period of L2 learning consists in the creation of an awareness on the part of the learner that members of the other cultural community act the way they do, because they are using the options provided for them by their culture in order to satisfy basic physical and psychological needs, and that these may be different from the norms the learners are used to from their native culture. Since learners are at an early stage of learning the L2, including its pragmatic, social, and cultural context, their focus on sociocultural phenomena of the target speech community may be limited, although they are clearly an integral part of L2 usage and central to developing intercultural third spaces on the part of the learner, even at this early stage. The limited L2 competence certainly has a restraining effect on gaining an understanding of the social structures and cultural patterns of construal and behavior of the cultural others, and thus on renegotiating one’s own identity through the engagement with the Other. In order to overcome this deficiency, the linguistically-based access to the other culture can be expanded by the use of non-linguistic media, for instance, images. According to the proverb “every picture tells a story,” images can convey very complex facts, issues, and circumstances but they have to be deciphered or “read” by the viewer

342 | 10 Mediating and assessing intercultural competence in the L2 classroom to attribute sense to what is depicted. Most young learners already interact with peers and friends via social media such as Facebook, mobile phones, or Skype so that it can be presumed that they are, to a certain extent, familiar (or literate) in the use of visual and other media (and sometimes more so than the L2 teacher). Given the influence of media, such as television and the Internet, on young people from early on in their lives, younger generations have become increasingly visually socialized. However, this kind of media literacy is not the same as visual literacy, even if the learners use these media to interact with people situated in other cultures, because the emphasis is on live-interaction and not on the interpretation of and reflection on what they see, for example, on TV or in the background of an image posted by a foreign friend on Facebook. Kress (2003: 1), for instance, sees a broad shift from the “centuries-long dominance of writing to the new dominance of the image.” Therefore, it seems appropriate to develop an intercultural visual literacy in the L2 classroom, tied in with and as an integral part of the overall fostering of intercultural competence. This kind of visual literacy can be developed into a broader kind of media literacy in the advanced L2 classroom (in the context of a larger framework of multiliteracies with regard to information and multimedia technologies), but in this early phase it starts off with still images taken in the other culture, leaving sufficient time for the learner to see and interpret what and how something (or someone) is depicted in the image. Visual literacy can be defined as the ability to interpret and make sense of information which is presented in the form of an image (cf. Hallet 2010: 32).¹⁴ The term literacy makes reference to textual reading and interpretation; hence the term visual literacy insinuates that images can also be read in the sense of taking meaning from the source. Compared to texts, images can convey different kinds of information in a simultaneous manner, because the information is presented in a very compressed form which can be culturally charged and needs a competent viewer to unlock the full complexity of the information in a culturally adequate manner. The receptor thus needs to be trained in sensitive viewing, because each mode of construction (e.g., text, music, dance, gesture) “has its distinct affordances and needs to be understood in its own potentials” (Kress 2008: 99). In addition to being able to “read” the image in a modally appropriate manner, the viewer has to acquire a competence in culturally adequate forms of seeing and interpreting. Typically, most learners will already have experienced images from early childhood onwards, for instance, in picture books or coloring books.

14 The term image in the wider sense refers to visually (but also haptically) perceptible objects, including paintings, drawings, sculptures, installations, architecture, films, electronically generated images, photographs, graffiti, objects of everyday use, etc.

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These images are an important building block for the construction of a particular aspect of cultural reality; for instance, children learn, before they begin to speak, what the roof of a house looks like, how gender roles are presented, etc. Thus, children have already acquired basic knowledge about the structures and functions of images. This knowledge can subsequently be expanded to culturally specific patterns of reception (or Sehgewohnheiten) of reading the image. In the L2 classroom, questions such as “Where is the scene located?”, “Who is involved in the scene?”, “Which theme is presented in the image?”, “Which perspective is used to depict the scene, and why?”, “Who might have taken (or produced) the picture and for what purpose?” could be used to focus the attention of learners on reading certain aspects of the (culturally different) image. Subsequent questions by the teacher or peers might expand the discussion to the actual narration of the scene depicted in the image, perhaps triggered by contrasting the scene to comparable situations and patterns from the learners’ first culture. This form of visual literacy facilitates a critical and analytical attitude which can build bridges between the scene depicted in the other culture and in the native culture of learners; learners have to apply creative and productive efforts of interpretation and participation by reflecting upon and discussing not only the perceived message of the image, but also its relevance for the target culture – and for their own lives. Images require the visual literacy of the viewer to decode the message (as understood by the learner, and the message may, of course, be revisited and reconstructed at a later stage), particularly with respect to images from other cultures which demand a certain amount of cultural background knowledge in order to read them as intended by the person(s) who created the image. For example, L2 learners of German may struggle to read an image used for advertisement purposes by a German commercial bank which depicts sheep wearing yellow oilskin hats, complemented by the slogan that “one has to bring one’s sheep to a dry place” (cf. Bachtsevanidis 2012: 119–120). The background knowledge implied by the image refers to the fact that it often rains in Germany, and therefore it is necessary to shelter sheep from the rain. A closer reading, however, reveals that the advertisement is for an old-age pension insurance scheme offered by the bank, and introducing the linguistic play of the German slogan seine Schäfchen ins Trockene bringen (directly translated as to bring one’s sheep to a dry place, but equivalent in meaning to the English metaphor to feather one’s nest) enables students to read the image as intended, including the ironic play of words. Another example would be the image of a German national of African origin who wears a T-shirt with the slogan Ich bin stolz ein Deutscher zu sein [I am proud to be a German]. This slogan is typically used by nationalist and right-wing parties in Germany, and the combination of the slogan and the person of African origin was intentionally used in Germany in 2000 by the anti-fascist campaign Deutsche

344 | 10 Mediating and assessing intercultural competence in the L2 classroom gegen rechte Gewalt [Germans against right-wing violence] to unveil certain stereotypes held by some (many?) Germans (in terms of nationalism and racism). Altmayer (2009: 131) uses this provocative image to elicit responses from learners of German as a L2 by contrasting their internalized stereotypes of a typical German, for instance, a beer-swilling, Lederhosen (or Dirndl) wearing white person (cf. Schulz and Haerle 1996), with the person presented in the image. This intentional evocation and contrasting of presumed stereotypes with the “reality” presented in the image can provoke discussions on what it means to be proud of a national identity with reference to the recent history of Germany in the Third Reich and to the constructs of national, ethnic, racial, or other forms of identity held by the learners, including their stances on being proud of their own national, ethnic, or racial identity. Images can not only be “read” in the L2 class, but they can also be produced, ideally in cross-disciplinary collaboration with the school-subject of arts, in order to express feelings or aspects of intercultural understanding that are difficult to verbalize at this early stage of learning the L2. Typically, drawing pictures has been practiced in early childhood before language was acquired by the infant (cf. Heath 2009), thus learners will be familiar with the techniques and purposes of composing a picture. In the L2 classroom, there are many ways of using the production of images for making learners aware of, and reflect upon, the differences and similarities between cultures, or of their own feelings and stances in relation to their development of intercultural competence; the onus here is on the learner as an embodied subject. The production of images can take the form of visually expressing the subjectively perceived location of the L1 and L2 (and other languages) in their bodies, or the impact of the L2 on their bodies (e.g., Krumm 2007); it can also be used to express the complex interrelations of the cultures and languages, as seen in the subjective perspective of the learner. A more complex form of image-production would be the construction of collages, emphasizing not only the complexity and inherent frictions of intercultural relations (as perceived by students), but also the integration of aesthetic concepts and principles. This can be done in a thematically-orientated manner, for example, with regard to schooling in the other culture (in comparison with the experiences of pupils in their own community), including the role of teachers and pupils, the look and the variety of equipment in the classrooms, the role and dress code of pupils, the ways of teaching and learning, the role of the school in the community, etc. Other guided tasks of producing images could be the construction of a poster for advertising a fictional product in the foreign culture (cf. Bachtsevanidis 2012: 123), drawing on learners’ knowledge in many regards: (1) linguistic (making up a slogan), (2) cultural (awareness of the reception of the image, including the use of colors and objects), (3) social (awareness of habits of consumption in the foreign culture),

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and (4) aesthetic (use of a combination of words, irony, word-play, objects, perspectives, and colors). The image could take the form of a drawn or painted image, a photograph, a collage of existing images (taken from magazines, newspapers, and the Internet), etc. In the L2 classroom, an image from the other cultural sphere provides an authentic speech prompt for meaningful communication which combines the cultural perspectives of the reader with the perspectives inherent in the image. However, it can be extremely difficult to discuss in the foreign language the complexities depicted or insinuated in the image at this early period of L2 learning. Therefore, only simple images, such as typically presented in textbooks of the communicative and intercultural approaches, can function as L2 speech prompts for stimulating the use of related phrases; a deeper discussion and reflection on what and why something is depicted in an image can be conducted in the L1 of the learners so that even small nuances in terms of cultural difference can be verbalized and adequately discussed, thus fulfilling the purpose of this pedagogic principle in terms of creating awareness and sensitivity on the part of the learners with regard to how members of the other speech community go about their daily business and why they might act in particular ways. Principle 4 – Awareness of stereotypes and attributions The comparative engagement with pragmatic situations and simple cultural patterns is complemented in this principle by the analysis of auto- and heterostereotypes. The discussion of stereotypes is an integral part of L2 learning because learners in the age of the Internet and television, will already have heard and seen information about the target language country, its people, and culture, and this information is rarely objective and free from value judgments but can be heavily loaded with stereotypes. Stereotyping serves the function of reducing potentially complex configurations of constructs of the Other. Stereotypes are socially and discursively constructed representations of certain groups of others which, once objectified, assume an independent reality of their own (cf. Section 3.3). They alleviate the apparent identification of the others, assign alleged characteristics to a certain group of people, and on the basis of these two mechanisms, individuals can be identified with stereotypical characteristics (cf. Hinton 2000: 6–8). The danger of stereotyping is particularly evident in the space of intercultural encounters, because the internalized L1-mediated categories of culturally specific patterns of orientation can mislead the process of perception and construction, and lead to inappropriate judgments of the other. An example of this process is the identification of someone as German, and the stereotypical attribution of characteristics such as hard-working, humorless, and punctual (among others), although none of these characteristics may be applicable to the

346 | 10 Mediating and assessing intercultural competence in the L2 classroom particular person in question. Stereotypes alleviate legitimations for actions and allow value judgments appear to be a natural phenomenon. In order to create stereotypes, “we tend to exaggerate the differences between groups and underrate the differences within groups” (Hinton 2000: 109). Exaggerated characteristics of certain groups of people then become commonly accepted knowledge within the group (ingroup favoritism vs. outgroup discrimination; cf. Section 6.4). With regard to early L2 instruction, Byram and Morgan (1994: 3) observe with reference to the cultural knowledge of learners: “Young people acquire some information but very little knowledge of the foreign culture through language classes; the influence of extra-curricular forces such as the media is greater – and more insidious – than the intuitive and unsystematic efforts of the teacher.” However, whereas mass media such as television, newspapers, and radio only confront the consumer with information of foreign cultures and societies, the L2 classroom can provide a platform for deconstructing, reconstructing, and coconstructing not only declarative, but more importantly, procedural knowledge about the other culture and speech community. The challenge for collaborative classroom practice is to render conscious the stereotypes which can be made accessible through collaborative cognitive effort. The inclusion of auto-stereotypes in this cognitive process is essential because learners will feel themselves misrepresented (cf. Section 6.4). Consequently, a personal consternation is generated on an affective level, which can only have a positive effect on the preparedness to engage even more intensively with (mis-)representations of the learner’s own social group, as well as with hetero-stereotypes. When confronted with the stereotype of being humorless, calculating, and carrying out activities in a machine-like fashion, young German L2 learners take offence at these stereotypical characteristics which are still used in countless English and American TV productions or sports commentaries. The fact that stereotypes always misrepresent the Other in a simplifying, insulting, and exaggerated manner provokes a critical analysis of them, which has the important heuristic function of contributing, for the learner, to making the process of constructive engagement with the target language, culture, and society more transparent, as he or she will be able to recognize configurations representing oversimplification, reduction, fossilization, or attribution. By making students aware of stereotypes in terms of content and function, some, if not most stereotypes discussed in the L2 classroom will be overcome, or at least be reduced in the sense that one is aware when using a simplifying and misrepresenting device. This is also an important goal of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, which states that “the ability to overcome stereotypical relationships” (Council of Europe 2001: 105) between the cultures involved should be developed as part of learners’ intercultural skills and know-how.

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Although stereotypes can be discussed whenever they arise in the L2 classroom, a more efficient method to overcome stereotypes would be a focused and socioculturally contextualized approach. An example of this would be the large-scale research project entitled “Culture and foreign language education,” which was conducted in the 1990s over two years in Finland with second-level students of 16–17 years of age who were studying German and French. The aim of this project was to sensitize learners to foreign phenomena and compare these to their own language and their own cultural standards, before actually engaging in interaction with representatives of the foreign culture (cf. Kaikkonen 2001: 88–99). This comparative approach activated learners’ previous experiences and views; they were encouraged to make observations about the foreign culture and keep personal journals of their learning experience. Learners then collected and created their own learning materials, because “textbooks generally give a superficial and stereotypical picture of the target culture and sociocultural functions of the language” (Kaikkonen 2001: 92; emphasis in the original). By compiling their own learning materials, learners were in a position to integrate their own subjective interests, views, and inner selves into the L2 learning process, and they considered these materials as authentic and immediately relevant for their own efforts of engagement with the linguistic and cultural Other, including the discussion of social, cultural, or national stereotypes. The materials could be arranged and shaped in a particular manner, reflecting each learner’s perspectives and approaches with regard to the other language and culture, as facilitated by the respective current state of his or her ZPD. This strand of the research project was enhanced by monthly visits from native speakers (cf. Kaikkonen 2001: 92), thus facilitating learners in discussing their observations of linguistic and cultural behavior, including mutual stereotypes or other reductive cultural attributions between the visitor and the learners. However, regular visitors from the target speech community can be considered the exception for most institutionalized L2 classrooms. In the absence of direct face-to-face interaction with representatives of the other cultural community, electronic media can be used, because they transcend national, social, and cultural boundaries. One constructive form of electronic media use for the purpose of fostering intercultural competence in the L2 classroom is represented by e-mails which are exchanged between partners from different cultures and in different languages.¹⁵ E-mails are an asynchronous medium which give students space for composing their texts and reflecting upon the responses of their partner

15 In the subsequent principles, additional electronic media will be introduced for specific purposes.

348 | 10 Mediating and assessing intercultural competence in the L2 classroom who is situated in the target speech community. Students can exchange e-mails in their respective L2 or L1, or a mixture of both, so that linguistic, communicative, and intercultural competences can be developed simultaneously. If these e-mail contacts are set up by the institution, preparatory classes are required for discussing the purposes and contents of the exchange. These may be related to the respective level of advancement of intercultural competence and range from auto- and hetero-stereotypes over perceived national traits and behaviors to subjective perspectives, all of which can be discussed with the other cultural group (or subject) during the e-mail exchange and, of course, set into the context of the current condition of third places of the learners themselves. O’Dowd (2003: 124) observes that during the e-mail exchange the viewpoints, stereotypes, and perspectives are contested, in that some students in their pairs are “correcting misrepresentations,” “fighting stereotypes,” and trying to convince their counterparts of the “rightness” of a viewpoint. These activities can heighten students’ awareness of the stereotypes and the cultural frames of reference used by each of the two groups, as well as facilitating a third space for them in the exchange in case they are prepared to, at least temporarily, suspend their cultural viewpoint and adopt that of the other cultural group. This can be an important stepping stone for enhancing intercultural competence in terms of empathy and tolerance of ambiguity which, of course, can be developed further over the period of the e-mail exchanges (e.g., located in Principle 5). The important aspects to these forms of intercultural encounter are the authenticity and adequacy (in terms of age and interest) of the intercultural contact which may be developed into personal friendships. In contrast to the traditional mass media, e-mail contact allows for interactive contact with people of the other speech community, facilitating a very subjective and personal form of contact between learners who are typically in the same age-bracket and pursue similar (age-related) interests. The asynchronous character of the e-mail exchange allows for reflection on cultural understandings before offering one’s own (or the group’s) interpretation of and perspectives on a particular subject-matter and the ways in which it is discussed. Hence, the learners have the time to consider, with the peers in the classroom, the values, worldviews, and (communicative) traditions of their own culture and those of the partner’s. This means that they can then think about the manner, the language, and the concepts in which they represent their own understanding of their culture vis-à-vis their partners in the other culture, thus inviting similar representations to be made by them, or engaging in discussing ways and contents of representation between the two cultural groups.

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Principle 5 – Intercultural borderline experiences in the L2 classroom In this principle, selected and very limited intercultural borderline experiences are facilitated in the sense that certain cognitive constructs which are negotiated in the L2 classroom will draw, at least partially, on certain patterns of construal of the other culture.¹⁶ This is a fundamental precondition for the negotiation for meaning between dominant constructs and Discourses of cultures, for the development of genuine blended mental spaces, and the potential to distance oneself, at least temporarily, from the internalized cultural frame of reference and social roles (or positionings) and assume another cultural frame of reference and a different framework for positionings. The sphere of these cognitive efforts can be located in pragmatic situations of everyday life in the L2 speech community; however, some structural similarities of these situations could foster a tendency not to question the validity of the acquired native cultural constructs. It would, therefore, be more effective to focus on spheres of marked difference. These could be social structures explicitly bound into Discourses of the other culture, for instance, schooling in the context of the education system in the target society (cf. Principle 3). One could try to understand certain values of both systems by explicitly comparing them with reference to their D/discursive contextualization. Underlying culturally-induced and conceptual differences in customs and performances can be used as discussionprovoking material which can give rise to questions on the part of the learner as to the validity of certain internalized cultural categories and conceptualizations within the domain of formal schooling. In the course of negotiation for meaning in the two Discursive worlds, aspects of the other system can be preferred to those of the learner’s own system. The preferences can be rather trivial, for instance, with regard to the obligation of pupils to wear a school uniform (as, for example, in Great Britain or Ireland) or not (as, for instance, in Germany or Austria), but they can also refer to differences concerning underlying values, for example, the status of certain school subjects, or the socially legitimized degree of distance between the roles of teacher and pupil. One possibility to achieve these borderline experiences, not only in the cognitive domain, but also in affective and behavioral domains, is through the use of simulations. In simulation tasks, the learners (in pairs or small groups) could be asked to plan and compose a curriculum vitae of an imagined person living in the target culture, partially based on “excerpts of a book and newspaper articles as input material on the life circumstances of different foreign people” (Kaikkonen

16 The term “experience” refers in this context mainly to cognitive experiences made during collaborative and subjective negotiation for meaning.

350 | 10 Mediating and assessing intercultural competence in the L2 classroom 2001: 94). The “input material” could, of course, be extended to visual and audio materials, such as images and short films available on the Internet (e.g., on YouTube), as well as excerpts from DVDs, CDs, and radio dramas. However, the materials should be easily accessible to the students in terms of language and pragmatics; they should be short, related to the interests of learners, and authentic. A higher-level contextualized approach to understanding the Other could be facilitated in advanced L2 learning by more complex simulation games (cf. Principle 7). For the pedagogical purposes of this principle, however, the simulation task should be limited so that learners can, for example, construct a CV of and stories about their hypothetical L2 role person, inscribing into the stories their own subjective feelings, fantasies, desires, and culturally-based cognitive perspectives and approaches. Of course, their imagination is also required for hypothesizing aspects of their role person which are not explicitly mentioned in the sources. Rather than being an exercise for its own purpose, the factuallybased, yet in parts imagined CVs and stories of the role persons can be creatively used in the L2 class in order to foster linguistic L2 aspects and holistic (inter-) cultural learning, as explained by Kaikkonen (2001: 94): “During the school lessons they [the students] interviewed each other about the life of their role persons, considered their cultural authenticity and developed their own role person’s curriculum vitae further. The students hence had extensive practice in writing and speaking the foreign language,” while at the same time negotiating and extending their cultural knowledge of the L2 speech community, albeit in a rather focused and limited way, as would be appropriate for the level of this principle of developing their intercultural competence. Unsurprisingly, Kaikkonen (2001: 94) writes that: “Many students indeed reported after this activity that they had worked very creatively and activated their imagination more than is usually the case in school. Moreover, they mentioned that this activity had also increased their ability for empathy,” which is an important sub-competence of the complex construct of intercultural competence. Empathy broadens the understanding for the motivations of action, emotion, and behavior of people in a certain context, particularly if this context refers to that of the target culture. Hence, these simulation tasks, albeit necessarily limited in scope, are an important instrument of holistic learning. However, in the simulation project conducted by Kaikkonen (2001), the transformative dimension of the simulation in terms of redefining one’s own role in the L1 context (or positioning) is not sufficiently integrated, thus neglecting the reciprocal element of intercultural competence. Some L2 teaching methodologies use this form of role simulation much more extensively, for instance suggestopedia (also known as desuggestopedia, superlearning, suggestive accelerated learning and teaching, and Psychopädie). In this alternative L2 methodology, learners assume right from the first class onwards

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the name and identity (primarily influenced by their chosen “occupation”) of a hypothetical member of the L2 speech community which they keep for the whole L2 learning process, thus enabling them to develop a comprehensive biography about their fictional selves and holistically experience elements of the second language, culture, and society from a hypothesized insider’s point of view (cf. Larsen-Freeman 2000: 84). This particular approach to L2 learning may be insufficient for initial L2 learning, but it grows on the learners as the L2 course progresses so that their mindsets can indeed be influenced, at least partially, by L2-mediated constructs of identity. Of course, the level of social structures and dominant Discourses is not the only sphere to facilitate certain intercultural borderline experiences. This potential is not limited to any particular aspect of the target socioculture but can include configurations from all walks of social life, cultural conceptualizations, and D/discursive positionings. For example, differences in cultural conceptualization of certain lexical elements can also be negotiated. Claire Kramsch (1993: 15–27) exemplifies this approach for the American concept of challenge, as compared to the German lexical equivalent of Herausforderung. Although presented in dictionaries as identical concepts, there are significant differences in the immanent cultural conceptualizations. Whereas the American challenge is mainly interpreted as a positive concept, because it stimulates the individual (or the group of people) to redouble their efforts in achieving a certain goal, the German cultural context does not emphasize these positive connotations; Herausforderung can also be seen as something unachievable which implies not bothering to embark on the efforts necessary to meet the challenge. Another example of the tension of conceptual differences is provided in Section 9.2 by Walter Benjamin’s notion of the inherent non-translatability of even simple and superficially crossculturally identical lexical items such as bread, pain, and Brot. Rather than simply referring to fixed dictionary entries, the cultural usage and the social implications of lexical items have to be reconstructed from within the other cultural context in a sociohistorical dimension; otherwise concepts cannot be understood in an appropriate manner, which might in turn result in cultural imperialism (cf. Section 8.3). Another approach to facilitating borderline experiences is characterized by Kaikkonen (2001), representing the continuation of the large-scale research project entitled “Culture and foreign language education,” introduced in the previous principle. As the topics discussed in the L2 classroom became more complex, project work was used to facilitate focused cognitive and affective work on topics such as construing five plans for the use of the former Berlin Wall area by way of hypothesized citizen action groups (or Bügerinitiativen). This project provides students with the opportunity to experience the social organization of civil protest related to a very culturally specific object (Berlin Wall) at a very specific moment in time

352 | 10 Mediating and assessing intercultural competence in the L2 classroom (i.e., the early 1990s when the fall of the Berlin Wall was topical for the L2 classes in German). It also has the potential to focus students’ attention on the specific interests of the relevant protagonists at the time, i.e., politicians, investors, residents, and ecologists whose perspectives they take on for the project. The adoption of differential perspectives related to solving the same problem has the potential, for learners, to identify with a particular perspective which has arisen in another cultural context, and transfer it to their own life-world context by, for example, identifying with the concerns of ecologists or the Green Party. With the (at least temporary) adoption of these perspectives, learners can look back at their own cultural constructs and speech community and see it with different eyes, and possibly even become active as ecologists. Other project work which was designed to prepare students for a visit to the target language country (as part of a student exchange program) included “the environment (living conditions and life circumstances, living and housing); visits (being a visitor in a foreign family, preparing for a visit); the arts (painting as a group activity and its evaluation with a native artist); and planning a public area” (Kaikkonen 2001: 93). These visits actually took place, providing students with the opportunity to test their knowledge, beliefs, hypotheses, and remaining stereotypes in the relevant cultural context. Students were meticulously prepared for this visit by being given observation and interview tasks, some of which were designed for all students and others for different student groups (pair work). The three tasks for all students (to be answered in their L1) are: 1.

2. 3.

Observe your host family. (What kind of family is it? What can you say of the family’s living standards? What are the relationships between the family members, especially the children’s relationship to their parents? What things are valued in the family? What is important for the family? Does everybody in the family have the same rights? How do the family relate to their guest? etc.) Interview your host family. Plan questions in the target language with your partner and report your results to your personal journal. (. . . ) Observe especially the way the family lives and what the home is like. Write down your observations about customs, rooms, furnishings, domestic appliances, etc.

(Kaikkonen 2001: 97)

The second set of questions for pair work aimed at more general social features of the host country, such as schooling, youth cultures, transport, leisure time activities, the media etc. This structured approach to the site visit in the speech community whose language is being studied focuses students’ minds on specific configurations that may be relevant for comparison to related phenomena in their native society. The procedure of keeping a personal journal by each student and recording observations (also by visual means, e.g., by using a video cam-

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era) provides the basis for deep reflective discussion during and after the visit, thus contributing to the intensive negotiation of meaning with regard to the Other but also including some L1 constructs, because they could be compared with the corresponding L2 constructs. The personal journals also provide a professional understanding on the part of teachers of what students consider important in their lives and that of their partners in the host country. Although this project could foster an awareness of the differences and similarities of cultural construal on the part of the students, not least because of their privileged situation of having native speakers as regular visitors to their L2 classroom and the opportunity to actually visit the target language speech community, the research project seems to foster an overall approach to intercultural learning which is informed by ethnography. The students seem to act from the position of distanced ethnographers in the host culture with an interest in observing how the members of the other speech community go about their everyday life in the host families. The results of their ethnographic research efforts are then recorded in the student’s journal (thus creating a cultural meta-text; cf. Section 7.2) for a later discussion in the familiar L2 classroom setting. This procedure seems to unduly remove the subjectivity of learners from their experiences in the host culture; insufficient attention seems to have been given to the subjective expectations, fears, experiences, desires, and emotions of students and their host partners before, during, and after the visit. Hence, it appears that an important opportunity for fostering reciprocal elements of intercultural competence has been missed, that is, elements that involve the native culture of the students and the individual student as an embodied subject. However, trying to negotiate the meaning of constructs, patterns, and habitus from an empathizing position within the Discourses, constructs, values, and beliefs of the other language, culture, and society provokes questions of validity, not only with regard to the Other, but also to internalized categories. Consequently, the conceptual framework of the acquired constructs of monolingual learners, having so far been unquestioningly assumed by them to be universally valid, can now be made explicit because they can, at least partially, refer to alternative constructs of another linguistic, cultural, and social system. The acquired L1-mediated cultural-conceptual system, therefore, becomes explicit in certain aspects. By referring to the patterns of construal of the other cultural system, the familiar system can now be consciously questioned, critiqued, and evaluated, and the L2 learner is in a position to consciously and intentionally develop intercultural places referring to the constructs of both languages and cultures involved. In other words, he or she is now in a position to subjectively integrate concepts and blend spaces between dominant cultural constructs and Discourses, while the dominance of internalized L1 conceptualizations is reduced, and for certain

354 | 10 Mediating and assessing intercultural competence in the L2 classroom aspects even eliminated, as in the example of comparing issues related to schooling. Intercultural borderline experiences in terms of construing meaning from patterns, values, and attitudes inherent in the other language, culture, and society, are a precondition for the further development of subjective positionings between these differential constructs. This implies transition in the knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors of L2 learners which is not just an expansion of existing knowledge and values (as Bennett [1993] implies; cf. Section 10.1), but a fundamental transformation of the bases of cognition, emotion, and behavior, achieved by blending certain concepts and constructs as part of the process of developing intercultural competence. Principle 6 – Increasing awareness of linguistic and cultural relativity In this principle, the rather limited and selective insights into the structures and patterns of foreign cultural construction and action, as addressed by the five previous principles, will be connected to more complex units of intercultural construction. In this manner, learners gain an insight into the relativity of linguistic and cultural constructs, including their own. This is facilitated by discussing the linguistic and cultural restrictions of the categories and patterns of one’s own perceptions, feelings, and attitudes, which opens up the path toward an insight into the cultural constructedness of certain categories, and ultimately achieves a basic intercultural openness of construal. The openness is characterized by the ability to not only revise some constructs of the native culture, but to negotiate the learner’s own subjective positioning between two or more cultures, based on increasing experience with and consciousness of the differential constructs. Thus, the monolingual and monocultural habitus is undermined and can be overcome in relation to certain components of construction. However, the process of acquiring knowledge about the cultural relativity of one’s own thoughts, feelings, and actions, cannot be confined to the cognitive level. It has to include the emotional and behavioral levels because of the embodied nature of meaningful intercultural learning and because constructs of personal identity will be modified in terms of L2 learners “growing more intercultural through the intensity of their cultural experiences” (Ryan 2009: 68). For L2 classroom practice, the implications are that comprehensive, explorative, multi-perspective, and experiential methods of learning are required. In the absence of the opportunity to frequently visit the target speech community, these methods could take the form of electronically mediated communication with members of the other speech community. In an expansion of the acquisition of visual literacy which was introduced in principle 3 for the purpose of employing authentic images as speech prompts, that lead to the reflection and discussion of intercultural spaces, electronic media can be used to develop and elaborate the

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awareness of linguistic and cultural relativity. Electronic media provide audiovisual access to members of other speech communities in real time; they facilitate authentic intercultural communication and communication about linguistic and cultural stumbling blocks, and they provide access to disembodied virtual spaces which are filled with the voices and images of others. Young people, for whom television, computers, mobile digital devices, and online gaming platforms such as PlayStation or Xbox have been part of their primary socialization, may be unaware that computer-mediated communication has created a virtual world which may be sometimes difficult to differentiate from the “real” physical and social worlds. The computer gives unregulated access to a world that is disembodied, mutable, and kaleidoscopic, hence being almost the opposite of the “real” social world in which the relatively autonomous subject constructs coherence for his or her experiences in the general framework of the temporally and spatially situated cultural system via its Discourses, genres, frames, conceptualizations, etc. (cf. Chapter 4). The virtual space, which can be accessed by the click of the mouse, provides unlimited opportunities for finding, retrieving, recycling, co-authoring, deleting, and sharing information. Thus, the virtual space does not favor the gradual development of culturally situated analytical modes of understanding, but it allows for immediate kaleidoscopic accumulation of isolated bits and pieces of information, including the constant shifting of perspectives, which results in a simulated reality, or virtual world. Although still rooted in the “real” world, the Internet encourages the subject to perceive his or her self as fluid, variegated, and ever-changing in the context of networked on-line communities with others, thus replacing the physical self which is firmly situated in space and time, and which relies on collective and personal memories, experiences, constructs, and fantasies, with a disembodied virtual self which is increasingly constituted by the virtual world of the Internet. The hyper-real space of the Internet knows no boundaries where texts, images, and data are the sole property of the culturally situated author; once uploaded, they are immediately and universally available for copying, pasting, or any other form of manipulation. Therefore, the hyper-real space of the Internet could be seen as the true transcultural space, detached from all cultural and subjective restraints and boundaries. Since the data available on the Internet are not integrated in a culturally facilitated framework of genres, frames, Discourses, metaphors, memories, contextualization cues, and other indicators of the subject’s positioning, stance, and intention of his or her use of the communicative force of the document, this absence of culturally stabilizing frameworks has to filled by resorting to the conventions and intents of the individual user, thus creating semantic gaps and frictions between the sphere of authorship and the sphere of consumption.

356 | 10 Mediating and assessing intercultural competence in the L2 classroom When interacting with cultural others as embodied persons through the Internet, their voices, texts, and images do not exist in isolation in virtual space (although it may appear to be the case for the user), but they are culturally embedded in respect to their inherent structures, functions, and purposes. Thus, the materials available on the Internet, as used for the purposes of in this pedagogic principle, are not culturally neutral resources, but they can be identified as being based on the specific cultural values and patterns of the L2 speech community; the users, too, are influenced by their culturally specific modes of (communicative) behavior which are not universally compatible with those of other online users. These cultural influences also touch upon multimodal literacies which include textual and image literacies (cf. Principle 3). Digital media require multimodal literacies because they operate with diverse materials such as texts, photos, music, videos, and other graphics which users upload to social networking sites. Although many young people are media literate, they tend to ignore these culturally specific influences on the Internet and other interactive media (cf. Kramsch and Thorne 2002). If L2 learners are to develop media literacy in the broader context of developing intercultural competence, emphasis has to be placed on computer-mediated communication as a cultural artifact in its own right that examines issues of identity construction through networked dialogue. Students’ fluid positionings as L1 speakers, L2 speakers, and intercultural speakers are extended by that of a digital speaker. If digital media are to be used in the L2 classroom, it is the task of the teacher to ensure that these media are used in an appropriate, sensible, and productive manner. “Teachers need to be technically literate, employ tools best suited for the task, moderate activities, provide careful scaffolding of tasks, and give detailed instructions” (Coleman et al. 2012: 173). The media-trained teacher can also highlight specific cultural influences on virtual communication if they impact on the mode or content of the interaction, positioning, and emergent construals of identity. In general, however, digital media lend themselves more to small-scale interaction between people, rather than largescale, abstract, and generalized formula, such as culture (cf. Guest 2002: 157). One productive form of using electronic media in fostering intercultural competence by direct exchange with the cultural other is represented by Tandem. In a typical Tandem learning partnership, two classes are linked by electronic visual media such as Skype, or by non-visual media such as email; one class is located in the L1 speech community and the other is situated in the L2 community. Both groups are studying the language and culture of the other, thereby guaranteeing a mutual interest and engagement in learning about the Other. This authentic intercultural dialogue is ideally suited to question the perspective of the other and their own cultural framework of reference, thus developing a third perspective, or blended third place, between the cultures as the locus of one’s worldview. The

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different perspectives can be criticized, rejected, agreed, coordinated, and aligned at any stage of their gradual development during the process of Tandem learning. In a Tandem project reported by Bechtel (2009), German learners of French engaged in a course with French exchange students of German for one semester at a German university. One of the German participants, Johanna, tells her French partner, Véronique, that she finds the French habit of using pecks (les bisous) for greeting someone very strange (vraiment bizarre), as pecks (or kisses on the cheeks) are not normally used in this context in Germany. Hence, the subsequent discussion is based on the observation of one partner who cannot understand an aspect of cultural behavior in the other speech community and asks for explanation of the authentic cultural other. In this exchange, Johanna uses her cultural frame of reference, whereas Véronique indicates that she can understand this perspective, but then explains the habit of les bisous from her French cultural point of view, first keeping it neutral by pointing out regional differences. She then highlights her own experiences with pecks, thus culturally positioning herself firmly in the French cultural tradition. Subsequently, the two Tandem partners engage in a deep comparative discussion of greeting rituals in French and German cultural traditions, realizing their personal views, not only as members of a cultural community, but also as women and students. They learn about greeting rituals in the other culture from the authentic (and subjective) point of view of the partner, taking the perspective of the other, inserting their selves into the discussion, and being able to be open to and accept the other cultural system of behavior, even if they do not necessarily adopt this particular habit for their own behavior in general. Thus, both partners appear to have achieved the sub-competences of savoir être and savoir apprendre in Byram’s model of intercultural competence. If electronic media are not used, this aspect of developing intercultural competence can be fostered by discussions and role plays, based on open literary texts (cf. Bredella 2000),¹⁷ short film extracts, critical incidents, or short simulation games, which transcend the cognitive level and include affective and behavioral domains. This procedure has the potential to provoke personal consternation, which in turn stimulates subjective engagement in the learning process. The critical incident method, for instance, consists of depictions of brief social episodes where a misunderstanding or conflict arises from cultural differences between

17 An open text is (deliberately) incomplete to encourage readers to interact with the text “in ways that go way beyond simple manipulations of text language” (Cortazzi and Jin 1999: 208). Open texts invite a range of possible interpretations, elaborations, and responses. By contrast, a closed text depicts aspects of an unproblematic world that reinforces learners’ views and beliefs.

358 | 10 Mediating and assessing intercultural competence in the L2 classroom the source and target cultures. Critical incidents¹⁸ can be particularly effective because they are fraught with cultural, social, or pragmatic content. Therefore, they can stimulate engaging discussions about the reasons for and solutions to these intercultural critical experiences, or, in other words, the differential cultural, pragmatic, and linguistic structures underlying the critical incident. Ideally, critical incidents should be introduced by the learners themselves, provided they have already had direct contact with the target language and society, because the authenticity of the dilemma experience is then guaranteed.¹⁹ Authentic critical incidents provide rich material for affective, cognitive, and experiential activities of constructing, deconstructing, and reconstructing meaning in particular contexts, as well as providing material for comparisons to similar situations in the home culture and society. This is particularly true when these situations are not only imitated in role plays, but creatively developed further (including referencing the native culture and society and fragmentary third places that so far have been developed) and transferred to other situations. Critical incidents, literature, role plays, and films provide the materials with which to widen the punctual insights gained in previous L2 classroom-mediated experiences to more complex spaces of intercultural construction. An example of the contribution of open literary texts to discussing culturespecific concepts of the roles of man and woman in society was experienced in a German class at a West African university where Wolfgang Borchert’s short story Das Brot [The bread] (1980) was read and analyzed. This short story is an example of an open literary text which has the potential to engage learners in a holistic manner. The story is set in the immediate post-war period in Germany in which an old man, driven by hunger, gets up at night-time and sneaks downstairs into the kitchen in order to secretly eat a slice of bread (which, like all food items in the immediate post-war period in Germany, was rationed and hence extremely scarce). He is caught by his wife who pretends not to notice his clandestine meal and continues to pretend believing his explanation that he got up because of some noise.

18 Critical incidents refer to positive or negative situations that are experienced or presented to learners in textbooks. According to Tripp (1993: 24), critical incidents are indicative of underlying trends, motives, and structures; thus they have the potential to significantly contribute to the understanding of specific cultural phenomena. Analyzing and evaluating critical incidents enables learners to reflect upon the nature of cultural differences in behavior. 19 Juliane House (1996) provides stimulating examples of critical incidents, derived from the direct experiences of students living in the foreign culture (in this case, American students in Germany). By contrast, critical incidents presented in textbooks are usually constructed by the authors of these books and therefore can be very artificial, decontextualized, and overloaded with meaning.

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In the Western conceptualization of marriage, it is quite obvious that the wife does not want to embarrass her husband in this situation of acute food shortage because she loves him and knows that his dignity, his self-respect, and their 39-year marriage could be damaged should she bluntly accuse him of stealing. This is the cultural backdrop of the short story; when read in a West African context, however, the cultural and conceptual backgrounds of the students reading this story are very different. They respond to signifiers in the text and complete what is left unsaid. The following sequence is a short excerpt from the authentic classroom discussion of the scene in question (cited in Witte 1996: 285): 1. 2. 3.

4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

Teacher (T): Why would she [wife] hurt him [husband] if she had shown that she understood him? Why would she have hurt him? Warum hätte sie ihn verletzt? Student (S)1: She would have accused him of stealing the bread. T: Yes, she would have told him to his face: “You are a liar. You told me a lie now.” Okay. But what of the fact that the man actually goes to work and earns the money? And the wife is at home preparing the food for him. She doesn’t earn money. Can you connect it? S2: The man should have eaten the bread boldly and. . . T: (Interrupting:) He should have eaten the bread with boldness? S2: Yes. T: And just should have said confidently: “I was hungry”? S2: Yes, because it was his anyway. He is the man in the house.

Here, the question of why the wife pretends not to know that her husband has taken a slice of bread is neither related to the historical context of severe food shortages in Germany immediately after the Second World War nor to the Western concept of the relationship on level terms between husband and wife, although the teacher tries to assist students’ efforts in unlocking the meaning of the text and to guide them to this angle of understanding. Based on their own cultural framework of reference, the students tend to fill the gaps by trying to understand the meaning and intention of the text with regard to the behavior of the protagonists. The responses of S2 in class seems to indicate that he cannot (or is unwilling) to understand the force of the text in the historically-specific context; however, the “misunderstanding” could also be consciously constructed in the framework of the performative site of the classroom where typically new knowledge is produced through meaningful interactions. The answer could have been produced by the student in order to get a certain reaction from the teacher or to position his or her self in a certain manner vis-à-vis his or her peers; it could also be a result of the personal story of the student or the student’s family. If, however, the misunderstanding of the intended meaning and cultural force of the text is culturally induced, this points to a more general problem of reading and interpreting texts which are set in another culture and in another historical period. Either the cul-

360 | 10 Mediating and assessing intercultural competence in the L2 classroom tural and historical context is filled in by the teacher (or the textbook, or both) or the students bracket out the author’s intended meaning and the historical context in which the story is set. The former approach must always be deficient because it can only operate on a cognitive level, and even at this level, it can only offer a very limited form of cultural and historical contextualization of the text which misses the richness of cultural and historical allusions. The latter approach to a large extent tends to ignore the intended meanings of the author and applies another cultural perspective to the reading of the text which is heavily influenced by the habitus and the cultural norms of the students’ L1 culture. However, there is a third approach to reading and understanding foreign literary texts in the L2 classroom. This third approach of “contact pragmatics” (Gramling and Warner 2012) “shifts the focus of analysis from the ‘text itself’ to the gaps and overlaps among the ways disparate native and nonnative readerly communities may tend to ‘comprehend’ that text in various appropriate ways” (Gramling and Warner 2012: 60). Thus, the interpretation of the L2 text is neither left in the domain of the foreign culture nor imported to the domain of the L1 culturally-influenced habitus of the learners. Ideally, both domains are negotiated in the L2 classroom in terms of their overlaps and disjunctions, providing the L2 learner with rich stimulations to reflect on his or her subjective stance with regard to understanding the text, and position his or her self accordingly in the unfolding discussion. Reading the L2 literary text is an intertextual and intercultural activity on many levels, as students do not only integrate the different patterns (or scripts) of the cultures involved, but they also integrate their own stories in terms of experiences, memories, expectations, and desires. The open literary text can provoke questions with regard to the positioning of learners that can challenge their habitus, which they take for granted in terms of its limitations and shortcomings vis-à-vis the contents and aesthetics of the literary text. Gramling and Warner (2012: 64) see this as “perhaps one of the most powerful lessons at the higher levels of foreign language study: recognizing that one’s angle on the world (or a text) is not commonsensical or truthful.” In our example of Borchert’s short story interpreted by students in Nigeria, the text is seen by students predominantly from their cultural perspective and Lebenswelt; they seem to apply the traditional West African sociocultural conceptualization of the relationship between husband and wife to their attempts of filling the gaps in understanding the scene. The teacher, cognizant of this possible application of cultural frame, tries to steer students’ interpretations in the direction of an understanding of the text which is guided by the German social, cultural and historical framework in which the text is set by emphasizing that “the man earns the money” and “the wife is at home preparing the food for him,” thus invoking an overly traditional construal of roles in a historical

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dimension. The answer of S1 shows that she was able to verbalize the implication that would have occurred if the wife had bluntly accused the man of having eaten the bread. The answer of S2, however, is characterized by the application of another cultural frame which does not fit in with the force of the story; from S2’s perspective, the husband’s denial seems to be unnecessarily embarrassing and humiliating. The teacher, having stumbled upon this unexpected culturally induced difficulty, then moves away from her plan of interpreting the story in a historicist manner and creates ample room for discussing of the roles of man and woman in order to facilitate a negotiation of gender roles in Nigerian and German sociocultural contexts. However, this discussion depends to a large extent on the input and the explanations of the (female) German teacher with regard to the Western constructs of equal status relationships between the two sexes in an idealist manner. At least some of the students, being conscious of such conceptualizations (e.g., through the media), become aware of their habitus-restrained stances and take positions as social actors accordingly, thus sparking off heated discussions. Here, Borchert’s short story prompts a negotiation of stances and positionings in relation to gender equality which quickly moves away from the text. Although this move away from the text misses the chance to include symbolic means of interpretation in terms of language-related implications (such as deixis, schemata, allusions, etc.), the goal of problematizing an aspect of habitus was achieved because the discussion tended to focus on the habitus domain of the learners. The discussion of the cultural frames of interpretation applied to reading the short story could have moved on to role plays, scenarios, or critical incidents on the topic in order to include affective levels more broadly because, clearly, the teaching and learning process remains largely at a cognitive level, and the purely rational explanations by the teacher for culturally induced differences included in the teaching materials are insufficient to facilitate bi- or multi-polarity of thought, affect, and behavior on the part of the learners (cf. Witte 1996: 284–286). Principle 7 – Challenging internalized cultural patterns of construal The process of becoming aware of the cultural patterns of restriction and enablement, which began in the previous principles with an emphasis on the other cultural constructs, focuses in this pedagogic principle on the acquired and internalized categories of the native culture. During these processes, these cultural patterns become more explicit and therefore cognitively accessible, in that they can be compared to similar constructs in other cultures and, as a consequence, can be critiqued and qualified. Therefore, the content and the activities introduced in this principle have the potential to undermine, but also to constructively

362 | 10 Mediating and assessing intercultural competence in the L2 classroom transform the monoculturally induced and unreflected self-confidence of perception, understanding, and action. The teacher has to be aware of the psychological sensitivity of the activities proposed by this pedagogic principle and give learners as much room as possible for collaborative negotiation for meaning. As in the previous principles, this should not be confined to the cognitive level, but should include affective and behavioral planes, based on experiential learning situations. After all, the primary purpose is not to train learners to function perfectly in the target society, but, rather, to stimulate them to negotiate blended cultural spaces and apply themselves and their life-world to this process, and to reconstruct their knowledge of their own internalized life-world by examining the cultural patterns underlying the life-world of people in another culture (cf. Neuner 2000: 44). As a result, the learner’s intercultural spaces become more refined and complex, his or her constructs of identity are broadened, and the attitudes toward Other and others become more receptive. The most meaningful manner of bringing oneself into the play of the target language and culture would be a sustained period of immersion in the other speech community.²⁰ However, a sojourn in the target language community is not always an integral part of the institutional L2 learning process. Therefore, complex simulation games such as Ecotonos (Saphiere 2008) or BAFA BAFA (Shirts 1973) could be used in order to achieve a similar effect. In the BAFA BAFA cultural simulation game, for example, the class is randomly divided into two groups, and each is given their own separate room. Each group is handed a list of the foundational values and norms of “their” hypothetical society and culture which have to be learned (or “internalized”) by the students. In the next stage, visitors are exchanged between the two groups so that both the perspective of visitor and host are experienced. The hosts have to verbalize their cultural norms, and the visitors have to try to understand them, not being at all familiar with that culture. The objective of this phase of the game is to try to get information about the patterns of the other culture and inform members of the hypothetical “native” culture about the different values, norms, and beliefs. Normally, this leads to a situation where the returning visitors try to explain their knowledge of the other culture with reference to their adopted “native” cultural norms. As a consequence, the norms and values of the other culture are perceived as being somewhat “weird.”

20 However, as Block (2007) remarks, even a year abroad as part of the undergraduate university program does not automatically engage learners in the sense of broadening their identity. As discussed in Section 9.6, this can only be achieved if learners are aware of the potential challenges and actual changes facilitated by immersion, and if they are actively and intentionally seeking to broaden their intercultural awareness.

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Through these experiences in the simulated cultural exchange, and by verbalizing and discussing them, the strong tendency towards ethnocentrism can be raised to consciousness by the participants, especially because the norms and values of the “cultures” involved are purely hypothetical and only verbally mediated (cf. Ward, Bochner, and Furnham 2001: 258–259). The artificial constructedness of these “cultural” values and norms in the game can increase the level of difference between the two cultures so that it may be more evident than in authentic cultures. However, the personal affectedness generated by the direct experience of different cultural norms, even if they are only artificial, can have a large impact on transferring these observations and experiences to the cultural constrictions of the internalized norms, values, beliefs, and attitudes of the learner’s authentic native cultural circle, and, by extension, to that of members of other cultures. It is vital to operate with holistic instruments in the teaching and learning process which facilitate explorative and experiential learning with regard to trying to reconstruct the norms and values of the native culture in comparison to those of other cultures. A restriction to cognitive engagement would be insufficient because of the complexity of the norms, values, and attitudes inherent in the other’s (and learner’s own) life-world which clearly involve emotional and behavioral dimensions. When trying to gain access to other cultural norms, one has to be prepared, at least temporarily, to intentionally suspend one’s own cultural patterns, norms, and values and to adopt those of the other culture, as one construes them. However, this change of mindset is hardly achievable in a manner which unquestioningly recognizes the values of the target culture. Normally, the learner puts these in relation to the corresponding internalized norms and values of the native culture. Only this constantly oscillating process fosters a further genuine conscious development of intercultural third places. A much more complex and authentic form of cultural exchange than is provided by cultural simulation games can be facilitated by Internet discussion forums. The Internet forum provides a space for the discussion of certain authentic topics or threads. This is also typical for chat rooms, but in contrast to these, Internet forums archive posted messages (at least for a period of time) so that users can look up the history of a certain thread or topical discussion which might be a useful tool for L2 learners who typically require more cultural background information regarding context than native speakers. On Internet forums, anyone can post messages and asynchronously respond to the postings of others. In order to sift through posts and comments and remove those which are inappropriate or offensive, most forums employ one or more moderators. Since these forums are typically used for rigorous, sometimes even inflammatory and very emotional discussion and debate on a specific topic in a particular genre and set in a particular cultural context, no concessions are made for L2 learners. Therefore, it can be very chal-

364 | 10 Mediating and assessing intercultural competence in the L2 classroom lenging to position oneself in this milieu, as Hanna and de Nooy (2009: 189) note: “Public Internet discussion is a way of getting to know some of the locals in the global village, but it will mean doing so not only in their language but largely on their terms.” Participants are expected to contribute to the discussions without linguistic difficulty; they are also expected to know the implicit terms and conditions of engaging in this particular form of cultural practice, D/discourse, or genre. Therefore, participation in authentic L2 Internet discussion forums is clearly linguistically and interculturally very demanding and should thus be limited to more advanced L2 learners. But even at more advanced levels, preparation for participation in Internet discussion forums set in the L2 speech community is essential. Preparation can take the form of appropriate task design, training, awarenessraising, and rehearsal (cf. Hanna and de Nooy 2003: 71). Rehearsal could take place in specially constructed learning environments which mimic the cultural practices of the real forum; the parallel forum essentially uses the same rules, hence providing a moderated and asynchronous learning environment which requires learners to conform to certain rules and cultural practices. The moderated parallel forum with its pedagogical function can also support lower proficiency level learners, but its primary aim should be the preparation of advanced learners for the sometimes unpredictable and unprotected exposure on the Internet forum in terms of the reactions of the other participants. If advanced learners have crossed some invisible behavioral or cultural line in the authentic Internet forum, they may only discover this violation of norm by the reactions conveyed by other members or the moderator of the forum. Appropriate cultural behavior can be learned in forums through “explicit commentary [by moderators] on the appropriateness of contributions,” “implicit commentary [by moderators or other users] on [linguistic and cultural] appropriateness,” “informal induction of newcomers to the forum by seasoned contributors,” “comparisons made with other genres and situations,” and “instances of protest or conflict” (Hanna and de Nooy 2009: 8). Thus, Internet forums provide students with an opportunity to join an authentic linguistic and cultural practice in the L2 on its own terms and according to its own rules, aiding them in learning to become part of the authentic D/discourse community. However, the appropriate location for discussing problems and violations in the membership of the forum, if noticed by the learner, is the pedagogical safety of the L2 classroom, and not the Internet forum, since it is typically not interested in culturally induced forms of (mis-)behavior. Furthermore, students need to be prepared for the possibility of, and ways of dealing with, negative reactions prior to entering an Internet forum community which has certain cultural expectations as to the appropriate behavior of their members.

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Another form of using the Internet for learning about the cultural context of the L2 speech community and developing intercultural spaces is represented by the cross-cultural initiative entitled Cultura (cf. Furstenberg et al. 2001; Furstenberg and Levet 2010). This project is quite different in its composition from the Internet forum; it is a long-term methodologically and didactically structured project. It is also a very comprehensive project so that it cannot be restricted to a particular L2 learning sequence but must be planned on a broader basis. The original Cultura project involves a carefully designed pedagogy of culture learning between American and French university students over the course of one semester,²¹ allowing students from different cultures to gradually co-construct, via a common Website and computer-mediated exchange, a deeper understanding of each other’s cultural attitudes, beliefs, and values. “The project provides a constructivist, interactive approach which allows both sets of students to gradually build, under their teachers’ skillful guidance, knowledge and understanding of each other’s values, attitudes, and beliefs, in a very concrete and dynamic way” (Furstenberg et al 2001: 59). However, when using the principles of the Cultura project, one has to bear in mind that the data and materials are deposited in a virtual space (or cyberspace) and are thus detached from the social reality of the users. Cyberspace tends to elevate the intersubjective space into infinity, and hence encourages the authorship of data which are strategically generated for use in this neutral environment, rather than a direct intersubjective face-to-face interaction. At the center of the project are four progressive stages which are simultaneously applied in both classes and which are coordinated and discussed in on-line forums between the two groups. In stage 1, three types of questionnaires (on word associations, sentence completions, and reactions to hypothetical situations) are distributed to both groups of students who answer the questions in their L1. The questions are designed to highlight cultural differences in terms of concepts and modes of interaction between people in a variety of contexts. The answers provided are then collated and posted on the Internet side by side, facilitating easy juxtapositions and comparisons. In stage 2, the students analyze the data, first individually, and then as a group in class, with regard to the cultural similarities and differences they observe. In the process, they identify connections, contradictions, and patterns, and they write down their collective observations and comments. In stage 3, students begin to communicate their reactions and observations

21 Since its inception in 1997, Cultura has been adapted to use in secondary schools and to other languages, connecting students in the US with students in Germany, Italy, Mexico, Russia and Spain (cf. http://cultura.mit.edu/community/index/cid/1).

366 | 10 Mediating and assessing intercultural competence in the L2 classroom to their counterparts in the other culture via the online forum. Unlike authentic Internet forums, this forum is pedagogically instigated and supervised, and the dialogue is asynchronous which allows ample time for reflection and deliberate wording of the postings. Each of the items in the questionnaire leads to a specific forum which encourages students to exchange views on a wide variety of topics. The postings are not anonymous, thus facilitating a personal reaction to specific comments; the instructors do not intervene in the discussions so that students can lead the discussion in any direction they wish. Finally, in stage 4, students broaden their field of intercultural knowledge and analyze a greater range of documents representing both cultures, such as opinion polls dealing with societal issues, polling resources available on the Web, archives containing the responses to the questionnaires, films, newsstands, images, books, etc. Thus, students can check the “‘representativity’ of the current responses and forum discussions against a much broader backdrop” (Furstenberg et al. 2001: 61), but these resources also allow them to follow up on specific items of their interest and, in general, it allows them to continue developing their intercultural competence beyond the four stages. It is worth noting that the language chosen for the questionnaires and forums is the L1 of students; the target language is reserved for the L2 classroom. The reason for this, at first glance, strange practice lies in the fact that students can portray subtle cultural nuances much better in their L1; in addition, a situation is prevented from arising where particular students may dominate discussions due to their proficiency in the L2. Using the L1 for the forums has the added advantage that the discussion will center on cultural differences and similarities (rather than linguistic problems), and students from the other culture can access the documents in the authentic language of their counterparts, thus contributing to their L2 learning process. The Cultura project is in some aspects comparable to Tandem, but it seems to be much more rigidly structured and uses much more relevant context materials, such as films, polls, or the newsstand (where students can find relevant print materials or web-based materials related to specific issues). Thus, the tasks, techniques, and strategies are designed specifically to include as many authentic facets of the two cultures involved as possible. Some of the materials have been authored by the partners in the other culture, so that students from the respective other culture can interact directly with the authors and ask detailed questions with regard to cultural traditions and social practices. The learning partnership provides access to authentic cultural others with similar interests and ambitions; it is interactive, reciprocal, and pedagogically designed in a manner that partners will learn about each other in equitable, respectful, and balanced ways. The anonymous and asynchronous nature of the initial forum interaction allows for a

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data-driven and objective approach to the other culture in which possible tensions and frictions are delayed and can hence be addressed in a structured pedagogical manner. The collated responses to questionnaires support this approach of focusing the student’s attention on cultural patterns and trends rather than individual responses, thus protecting the subjectivity of students responding to questionnaires in the initial stages of the project. However, the Cultura project is focused on generating a data-driven understanding of the cultural other which neglects a methodological development of the intercultural third space of every individual learner, based on his or her subjective experiences, memories, and desires. When students begin to engage in personal one-to-one interactions with their counterparts in the forum, they have already developed an awareness of the cultural relativity and the range of views that are generated by the discussion of particular topics. The daily logs that students keep help them to reflect on certain issues as discussed with their counterparts in more refined ways so that they keep a record of their intercultural development which they may revisit at any stage of their learning.²² The considered mix of strategies, techniques, and technologies is a particularly noteworthy achievement of the Cultura project in facilitating progressive development of guided encounters with the other culture and, therefore, intercultural competence by the innovative use of new technologies. However, due to the text-based approach of Internet forums and, to a lesser extent, the Cultura project, some students who may have different learning preferences, such as visual, auditory, or kinesthetic styles, can easily be alienated. For instance, Hanna and de Nooy (2009: 177) caution that students are not always enthusiastic about learning through the forum assignments; they report that in one class evaluation most students stated that they preferred oral discussions to online postings. Therefore, the classroom should not be centered on just one method of mediating intercultural competence, but it should offer a variety of perspectives, methods and media in order to appeal to a range of learning styles and learning preferences. Principle 8 – Developing subjective intercultural places The processes of adopting perspectives of the other culture(s) and directing them toward native cultural constructs will now be expanded and transferred to both cultures involved. The objective is to create at least partial acceptance of cultur-

22 It would be desirable that these records of subjective development of intercultural third places were integrated more emphatically into the L2 class, thus creating a community of enquiry in order to make achieved development aware to all students and provoke discussions on different subjective tools and paths of developing intercultural competence.

368 | 10 Mediating and assessing intercultural competence in the L2 classroom ally induced divergence of fundamental patterns of perception, construction, and (inter-)action in the sense of being able to develop elements of empathy. Empathy presupposes the ability to suspend deeply internalized values, norms, and attitudes with regard to certain constructs, situations, or experiences and to understand the values, norms, and beliefs of the other culture in their own right. Consequently, the subjectively perceived, seemingly universally valid constructs and frames of the native culture are questioned, and some frames and constructs of the other culture may be seen as more valid by the subject.²³ The purpose of this pedagogic principle is the combination of some of the learning achievements of pedagogic principles in a multi-perspective manner, as is appropriate for a multilingual person who has developed the ability to be open to other cultural constructs and configurations with an attitude of genuine interest and without prejudice, who can deal with ambiguity in a constructive manner, and who has a deep knowledge of cultural, social, and linguistic practices of at least two speech communities which he or she can make productive for his or her cognitive, emotional, and behavioral activities. The learner is now prepared to shift the frame of reference, at least temporarily, between cultures in the emerging intercultural space, to use categories of the other culture in order to understand cultural difference, and to experiment with creative approaches of problem-solving and decision-making. This form of intercultural competence includes, for example, the ability to see through the L2 (and the L1) in a sense that the genres, Discourses, plausibility structures, and narratives behind the words are recognized in terms of what is left unsaid, what could have been phrased differently, and why something was said in a particular manner. However, the goal of L2 learning is not acculturation but, along with the acquisition of linguistic and communicative competence, a broadening of the (inter-)cultural foundations of construal with regard to cognition, emotion, identity, and behavior. This process of enriching and broadening culturally-based constructs has an effect on fostering subjective intercultural places. Interculturality in this sense refers not to mere interaction between cultures by means of exchanging information, but to facilitating, expanding, and maintaining a subjective-intermediary field of genuinely new knowledge, generated by the conscious subjective engagement with cultural patterns of construal of the cultures involved. Only when this new dynamic and blended field of knowledge is established, can genuine identifications of difference be facilitated. This field of knowledge is the subjective intercultural place. Although negotiated and constructed collaboratively with the assistance of others, the intercultural place is

23 This process was already alluded to in Principle 5, albeit in a more restricted manner.

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characterized by a high degree of subjectivity, as it is ultimately the subject who constructs his or her own place in the collaboratively evolving third space for himself or herself, and who uses it as a genuinely new basis for his or her activities of construction, not only with regard to the target culture, but for all everyday real life situations and for positionings in-between cultures, influenced by subjective experiences, memories, and desires. An example of such an interculturally negotiated third place is provided by the Swedish teacher KAP (anonymized name) who, after having completed five weeks of field work in El Salvador, did a one-semester teacher training course on “The Intercultural Teacher” at Jönköping University in Sweden in autumn 2005. At the conclusion of this course, she writes: “In conclusion I must say that my intercultural ability has changed during this course. Within the course I have received tools for how I can step out of my own culture to evaluate why I am reacting as I do, as well as I have learned methods of evaluating other cultures” (KAP, cited in Lundgren 2009: 143–144). The use of the term “tools” may be too restrictive in this context, but this statement captures the learned ability to change the frame of mind, as well as some characteristics of the third place, including the subjective positionings between the cultures, the ability to adopt another frame of reference, and the long-lasting effects of acquired intercultural competence in terms of behavior and construction (including shifting constructs of identity). However, not all students achieved this level of intercultural competence at the conclusion of the course, as PEM notes: “I haven’t changed my mind that much and haven’t received much new thoughts but I have developed and refined my old thoughts” (PEM, cited in Lundgren 2009: 148). The phrase of not having “received much new thoughts” may point to an overall consumer attitude of intercultural education by a student teacher who is not prepared to engage in the learning experience to such a degree that the self is put at risk. These two statements relating to the outcome of the same teacher training course emphasize the relevance of personal attitudes and levels of engagement when it comes to developing intercultural competence. A one-semester course is much too short to comprehensively foster intercultural competence; it can just mediate relevant concepts (as, for example, contained in Byram’s theoretical framework of intercultural competence) and pointers as to sensitive intercultural behavior in certain situations. Therefore, the subjective engagement as to fostering intercultural competence cannot be scaffolded in a long-term, sustained, and structured manner, as proposed in the current model of pedagogical principles, which is aimed at a much more sustained period of learning the L2 and fostering intercultural competence. As in previous principles, the learner, due to the subjective perspectives used in developing and fostering the intercultural place, has to be given as much leeway as possible to collaboratively and subjectively negotiate for meaning within

370 | 10 Mediating and assessing intercultural competence in the L2 classroom the subjective third place by engaging with constructs of two (or more) cultures. Consequently, neither the teaching methods nor the learning outcomes can be defined in detail (cf. Section 10.3). The L2 classroom can only provide structured choices for learning, but the relevant effects and outcomes can only be negotiated and internalized by the subjective learner. By having reached a level of intercultural learning informed by this comprehensive and complex pedagogic principle, the learner should have developed an attitude towards the learning process that is characterized by the desire to experience more intensive encounters in relation to cultures, possibilities of construal, and positioning between cultures which is, in general, a pleasurable and transgressive experience in terms of being enabled to lead a richer life. Therefore, the learner is now in a position to increasingly pursue independent learning activities in which he or she can also make use of the media literacy and critical digital literacy alluded to in principles 3 to 7, but without the scaffolding that was previously provided. By now, the learner should also be linguistically and communicatively competent in the L2 so that he or she can freely participate in Internet forums which are located in the L2. The advanced L2 learner can bring his or her self into the Internet forum by drawing on his or her identity as a digital user which is characterized by transculturality (cf. Principle 7), yet benefit from the authentic L2 discussions on political, social, societal, ideological, topical, or cultural issues of the day in terms of partially adopting the perspective of the cultural other and integrating the L1-mediated perspective, the degree of which may vary according to the immediate requirements of the forum discussion. The subjective positionings in-between the dominant cultural Discourses are indicative of the degree of intercultural competence acquired. Since autonomous learning activities are increasingly facilitated, by this principle which is aimed at fostering intercultural third places, it is the learner as a cultural subject who decides on the types of activities and media best suited to his or her subjective interests. The choice of the Internet discussion forum might not be everyone’s preference when it comes to independent learning activities because it is text-based and, what is more, most discussion forums require membership to sign up for accounts. This may alienate some potential users, particularly when they do not feel comfortable with formal aspects of subscribing to, or inscribing themselves into, forums which they may not know much about and which may imply certain obligations (e.g., commenting on other blog posts or reacting to responses to their own posts). Furthermore, students may have learning preferences that go beyond purely text-based media, such as visual, auditory, or kinesthetic styles. These are not provided for in Internet discussion forums; they typically do not allow users to design their own pages, add photos, videos, or a blogroll (a list of the user’s favorite websites). By contrast, Blogger and Wordpress blogs are free and customizable, and users can effortlessly post photos, audio

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files, and videos so learners may turn to these media. Even Internet-based gaming platforms, such as Xbox or PlayStation, can be used because they provide for visual, auditory, and kinesthetic styles, although the focus of interaction is concentrated on the demands of the game itself and on the visual, auditory, and kinesthetic effects created by the producers. This aspect enormously reduces the potential for intercultural encounters which may be explicitly explored only in exceptional cases, for instance, when both players have a mutual interest in discussing certain ways of approaching the game, or particular ways of expressing thoughts online. However, if the L2 classroom uses electronic media, a large range of options has to be introduced by the teacher (and the peers) which appeal to different learning styles and strategies so that learners can make informed choices as to which media best suit their subjective interest in independently exploring their third space between cultures. This may, at least initially, also include gaming platforms, if learners are comfortable and familiar with these and see intercultural potential in them. These options also have to include the most popular social media such as Facebook and Twitter which learners may have privately used before starting to learn the L2. While the uses of most media introduced so far in this section, for instance e-mail or Tandem, are scaffolded by a pedagogical framework in the sense that learners are supervised and protected in a learning environment that is designed to be sympathetic to the non-native speaker, the role of other media, such as the Internet forum, Facebook, or Twitter, is truly authentic and does not serve a pedagogical function. These media may frequently be used privately by learners, albeit not necessarily in the context of their L2 learning activities. However, using Facebook or Twitter privately for improving language skills and intercultural competence can be very productive. By using Twitter for second language learning purposes, learners can follow a prominent person (or persons) of their interest in the L2. Tweets are confined in length to a maximum of 140 characters, hence avoiding long and winding texts. This fact may also be advantageous for cultural learning purposes, as L2 learners would mainly be interested in following friends and idols in their daily lives, thus having access through short texts, but also images, to authentic social, personal, and cultural phenomena of people who live in other speech communities. Through Twitter, students have also the opportunity to ask questions about cultural and other issues that are of interest to them. Students themselves can, of course, use Twitter to share not only their own routines and views, but they can also have access to many relevant news items, blog posts, and other materials so that they can benefit enormously from other people sharing such information. Through Facebook, personal contact with cultural others can be established if students have sufficient and adequate L2 linguistic and cultural knowledge.

372 | 10 Mediating and assessing intercultural competence in the L2 classroom Both Facebook and Twitter also allow users to share and access visual and audio information on topics being discussed so that communication is not limited to the written word. However, subject positioning is very important in social networks because the use of written and other materials is frequently strategically motivated. Positioning activities on Facebook can create “a compulsion to constantly reinvent oneself” (Kramsch 2009a: 183), and therefore have to be taken with a grain of salt. By now, learners should have developed a degree of visual, media, digital, and (inter-)cultural literacy that enables them to look through the positioning activities, even if based in a different cultural context. However, the L2 classroom should always be available to serve as a forum to reflect upon and discuss inconsistencies if learners privately stumble across them in cyberspace and feel that the learning efforts of the class can benefit from them. Since the activities suggested in this principle are centered on very subjective construals and constructs which are in the process of developing between dominant cultural voices, narratives, Discourses, and plausibility structures, the learner cannot be left to his or her own devices when dealing with these interculturally based constructs. The L2 classroom can only provide a limited space for discussion because it has to focus on the ZPD of all learners and cannot always provide the detailed scaffolding that may be required by each learner as an emerging intercultural subject (although every effort should be made to accommodate the ZPD of each learner). In this situation, the “Autobiography of Intercultural Encounters” (Byram 2009: 227–234; Council of Europe 2009a; cf. Section 10.3), or AIE, could provide a useful instrument to assist learners in analyzing their respective current state of their very own intercultural encounter with otherness. The AIE focuses on only one particular event and experience with otherness at a time and encourages students to deeply reflect upon and describe their authentic experience of otherness.²⁴ The AIE aims at the analysis of authentic experiences of otherness in terms of an encounter the learner had with someone of a different ethnic, religious, linguistic, social, or cultural background, be it in the one’s own speech community or abroad (cf. Council of Europe 2009a: 3). This definition of intercultural encounter seems to center on direct face-to-face encounters; however, at this advanced level of fostering intercultural competence, hypothetical cultural encounters, for example, mediated by complex cultural role plays or simulation games (such as BAFA BAFA or Econtos), can also give rise to subjective experiences of difference that include cultural misunderstandings in the

24 Although the AIE refers to just one encounter, it can be repeated with regard to other encounters “as often as the learner wishes and would thus build up a portfolio of accounts of encounters” (Byram 2009: 224).

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sense that one may be taken aback by the reaction of the cultural other. Hypothetical intercultural encounters do, of course, suffer from the lack of linguistic, pragmatic, communicative, and cultural authenticity; however, they reflect the different degrees of cultural literacy in filling the gaps that have opened up in the intercultural space, as displayed in the game by the participants, and can therefore require deeper reflection on and analysis of specific issues, as perceived by the subjective intercultural learner, particularly when guided by a more knowledgeable other (e.g., the teacher). Another form of intercultural encounter that is not considered by the AIE is the direct, authentic, and unprotected communication with the cultural other through electronic media in cyberspace, for instance, Internet discussion forums, Facebook, Twitter, etc. These media certainly facilitate “authentic” cultural experiences which can be likened to those made in face-to-face encounters. Therefore, the AIE should be expanded to include electronically mediated intercultural encounters which can be no less authentic than direct physical encounters, although the electronic medium poses additional opportunities and threats with regard to the nature of the encounter, digital identities, representation of cultures, traditions of Discourse, genre, narrative, and plausibility structures, etc. (cf. Principle 7). This adaptation of AIE with respect to electronic media could easily be implemented, as the existing analysis is guided by a series of questions which take the user through the chosen subjective intercultural experience. As the self-analysis is carried out, the sequence of questions also encourages the users to evaluate their very subjective responses to the encounter and consider how, as a consequence, they would act in the future in similar situations. As the series of questions is based on Byram’s (1997) model of intercultural competence and action, an informed facilitator (e.g., the teacher or a member of the L2 speech community) could guide and support the learner in analyzing and evaluating the intercultural experience in terms of guiding him or her to become aware of underlying cultural patterns and socially expected behavior. However, the figure of the facilitator is not an absolute necessity for the analysis of experience or behavior with cultural others; the series of questions invites the learner “to describe and analyze the encounter reflecting on their own experience and how they imagine the ‘others’ involved understood the experience” (Byram 2009: 224), thus drawing on the ability to assume another cultural frame of reference for the purpose of analyzing one’s own actions and behavior with respect to the significant or memorable intercultural encounter which is examined. Such an encounter may include one’s actions and behavior in the context of interacting with cultural others and which, only by the reactions of these others, may be flagged as inappropriate or problematic. For example, when invited to dinner at a restaurant in England to

374 | 10 Mediating and assessing intercultural competence in the L2 classroom celebrate the postgraduate degree achieved by a friend, a visiting student might be surprised to discover that the other students invited whom she has known before only in informal dress in many different situations, suddenly all show up in formal dress, whereas she had assumed that the traditional informal dress order was applicable here, too. The reason for wearing formal dress, however, is the social importance attached to this kind of more formal celebration in England (especially when the supervising professor is also present), a visit to a restaurant (and not he pub), and the courtesy one is showing to the professor who, of course, also wears formal dress. This may be different in other European traditions, and the visiting student had naturally based her dress code on what she was used to from many previous meetings with these friends and on the less formal dress conventions of her own culture in this context. The AIE provides a number of questions to stimulate reflection which center on the learner as a cultural subject. The learner does not have to answer every single question; he or she can focus on those which he or she considers particularly relevant for his or her chosen intercultural encounter. The subjectivity of the learner is brought into the play of cultural patterns right from the start, as the very first question of the AIE is: “How would you define yourself? Think about things that are especially important to you in how you think about yourself and how you like others to see you” (Council of Europe 2009a: 5). By trying to respond to this introductory question, the learner has to reflect upon his or her positioning vis-à-vis self and other, as well as his or her desired identity vis-à-vis others (and, by implication, their positioning of the learner). The first group of questions then focuses on the description of the particular intercultural encounter in terms of its nature and other people involved (Council of Europe 2009a: 6–8), i.e., the cognitive dimension, or savoir. The next group of questions deals with the emotions and attitudes of the learner and others with respect to the encounter, as perceived by the learner, (cf. Council of Europe 2009a: 9–11), i.e., the emotional and attitudinal dimension, or savoir s’engager. These are followed by questions about similarities and differences of knowledge, attitudes, and emotions at the time of the encounter and at the time of the retrospective AIE analysis of the encounter, for instance: “Looking back at the situation, are you aware now of any other similarities, and if so, what are they?” (Council of Europe 2009a: 12; emphasis in the original). The final set of questions is aimed at the reflective evaluation of the encounter by the subjective learner, without any interference from a facilitator: If, when you look back, you draw conclusions about the experience, what are they? (. . . ) Did the experience change you? How? Did you decide to do something as a result of this experience? What did you do? Will you decide to do something as a result of doing this Autobiography? If so what? (Council of Europe 2009a: 18–19)

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These questions are not in any way leading because they do not want to interfere with the highly subjective intercultural place the learner has developed as a result of analyzing and reflecting on this encounter. They provide the subject with deep personal insights that have been gained as a result of the guided analysis of a particular encounter, thus raising to awareness the present state of intercultural competence with respect to the encounter. The learner can connect these insights to the present state of intercultural competence and is prompted to further reflect on the insights he or she has gained by analysis and reflection with regard to the intercultural encounter. When completing different AIEs, the learner can put together a portfolio of evaluations of very specific and subjective intercultural encounters which, on the one hand, can serve as a personal documentation of fostering intercultural competence at advanced levels, and, on the other hand, it can prompt the learner to look at previous particular intercultural encounters with the aim of retrospectively re-evaluating the analysis and reflection made at the time of completing this AIE from the basis of a more comprehensive and advanced level of intercultural competence. However, the evaluation of the AIE should not be used as a tool for the quantitative assessment of the intercultural competence of the individual learner, for instance, in the sense of awarding marks in an institutional school context. The purpose of the AIE is to aid the subject in providing him or her with a guided analysis of and reflection on subjective intercultural encounters of the inner self, as Byram (2009: 225) suggests: “[T]he [AIE] document could remain entirely confidential and not open[ed] to be read by a teacher or anyone else.” It is exactly this focus on the subjectivity of the learner, the noninterference of outsiders (unless explicitly called for by the learner) in analyzing and evaluating the intercultural encounter in the context of the degree of intercultural competence achieved by the learner, and the potential of development in the ZPD which makes the AIE such a valuable and appropriate instrument for the learner at this very advanced level of negotiating highly subjective intercultural places between the cultures and their dominant patterns, attitudes, and Discourses. Principle 9 – Integrating intercultural competence into everyday life As has been evident throughout the characterization of the different principles of fostering intercultural competence, the L2 classroom provides methodologically and didactically structured spaces for discussion, reflection, creativity, action, and positioning in an overall progressive curricular framework from the simpler to the more complex. Thus, it initiates, coordinates, and aids the collaborative and subjective negotiation for meaning in intercultural spaces. In the course of the L2 learning process, the possibilities and options that the L2 classroom can offer are increasingly transgressed and the intercultural place is brought into focus for all

376 | 10 Mediating and assessing intercultural competence in the L2 classroom subjective activities of thinking, feeling, and (inter-)acting in all spheres of life. Intercultural competence can also be fostered by consciously living and engaging in a foreign society and culture for a sustained period of time, i.e., by a myriad of processes of (inter-)acting in this society, language, and culture, or by closely and frequently interacting with cultural others in the L1 speech community, be it in direct face-to-face interaction or by interaction through digital (or other) media. Whatever the setting, fostering intercultural competence to a high degree is not an automatic outcome of these encounters; often, the learner will stop developing interlanguage and intercultural spaces at an early stage of L2 learning. This may be the result of the loss of ambition to integrate further, or a feeling of losing one’s cultural identity in the intercultural space, cyberspace, or the L2 and its socioculture (cf. Chapter 6). By contrast, processes of institutionally facilitated and coordinated second language learning foster the constant development of intercultural competence in a methodical fashion, of which the learner is acutely aware. Once developed and internalized at the more complex levels of L2 learning, intercultural places, which are located in spaces on a continuum between the constructs and D/discourses of the two (or more) cultures involved, gradually replace monocultural bases for construction in such a fundamental manner that they are subconsciously used for all subjective activities of thought, emotion, and behavior. Very advanced L2 learners who have reached this level of intercultural competence have acquired an innate knowledge of cultural relativity of constructs, skills, behaviors, and attitudes, which monolingual individuals typically cannot achieve, as they have not experienced differential constructs in such an intentional, intensive, and reflective manner through a different medium of thought. Learners are now not just mere intercultural speakers, but they are also intercultural actors with cognitive, emotional, and behavioral positionings between cultures, languages, and communities. They have reached a level of linguistic, social, pragmatic, emotional, and cultural skills and abilities which enable them to constantly renegotiate their subjective intercultural and intermediary third place on the basis of permanent exchange between the cultural patterns, values, beliefs, norms, attitudes, and plausibility structures. This ability includes the skills to deal constructively with differences induced by linguistic and cultural constructs, to consciously negotiate the ambiguities of constructs and positionings, and apply them productively and creatively in their everyday activities. The learner is now no longer dependent on the scaffolding provided by more knowledgeable others; he or she can now continue to develop his or her intercultural places (understood as a succession of positionings within the complex interplay of languages and cultures) in a self-determined fashion. With regard to the linguistic level of intercultural competence, the process of translating, typical of the initial periods of L2

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learning, has given way to the ability to effortlessly think in the L2 and use the L2 for inner speech in the self-regulation of one’s mental activities. Intercultural competence on this very advanced level includes the ability not only to understand and respect, but also to actively use the internalized cultural factors and conditions in processes of perception, construction, feeling, and (inter-)action in a productive manner. This productive element can be reflected in the display of empathy with the situation of the (cultural) other, i.e., trying to understand his or her behavior from his or her native cultural framework of (inter-) action, while at the same time suspending premature attributions. The Swedish student KAP (cf. Principle 8), for example, is able to change her attitude towards arranged marriages in India (though not adopting the other’s point of view): “The first time I talked with Poo, the woman student from India, we talked about arranged marriages. From my point of view it was totally incomprehensible, but after she described it for me several times I got to understand her arguments. It is when I put myself into her culture and listen to her values that I can understand how arranged marriages can be suitable” (KAP, cited in Lundgren 2009: 144). Here, the two students, KAP and Poo, gained an understanding of the cultural values of their own culture and the culture of their counterpart, including the way they can influence the views of other people. The temporary adoption of the other cultural frame of reference can lead to an understanding of other sociocultural configurations which one would intuitively reject if one applies the internalized cultural values. This understanding, however, does not mean that one supports the culturally legitimized actions of others (such as arranged marriage), as another student from the same class writes: “To be intercultural is for me to respect all individuals but not always agree with the other. On the contrary; I think it’s better to take part, have an own opinion, and of course be prepared to change opinion in interaction with other opinions” (PIK, cited in Lundgren 2009: 145). In this view, intercultural competence includes a genuine openness for alternative cultural constructs which is reflected in the ability to recognize, appreciate, and sometimes adopt another cultural frame of reference, if it seems appropriate. The other cultural frame of mind, however, is not adopted in a completely identical manner because the subject has undergone a different cultural, social, and linguistic socialization, and therefore is more likely to blend the divergent cultural patterns and constructs with those internalized during primary socialization. Thus, the interculturally competent learner subjectively transforms transient interculturality to culturality for himself or herself, as far as his or her own cultural view is concerned. This occurs because the intercultural place is no longer characterized by deliberate conscious effort, but by the stance of “normality” taken for granted which is used without further reflection as the basis for one’s participation in all forms of social (inter-)action and subjective processes

378 | 10 Mediating and assessing intercultural competence in the L2 classroom of feeling and negotiation for meaning. Having reached this level, the intercultural learner does not view his or her achievements in this sense as the end of the learning process, even if it would coincide (in exceptional circumstances) with the end of formal schooling. On the contrary, he or she is acutely aware of the fundamental fragmentariness of cultural knowledge which, as a matter of principle, requires constant revision in terms of de- and reconstruction. This kind of intercultural awareness also includes the knowledge of the fundamental dependence of patterns of thinking, feeling, constructing, and behaving (particularly in interactions) on culturally specific concepts, schemata, values, norms, and frames. This intercultural awareness can be applied to intercultural communication in many different ways in terms of behavior; these include: 1. Looking for a common ground of interaction; 2. being sensitive to culturally induced patterns of communicative behavior (such as [im-]politeness or [in-]directness); 3. signaling one’s preparedness to empathize with the other; 4. paying attention to cues for misunderstandings and trying to analyze the reasons for these; 5. evaluating the effect of one’s own contribution to the interaction on the other (and vice versa); 6. applying one’s knowledge of the socioculture of the L2 speech community in terms of trying to hypothesize the intended meaning by the other (by being able to adopt divergent views); 7. clarifying the communicative conventions one is using, and, if necessary, rephrasing and simplifying one’s own utterances; 8. suspending premature interpretations of the verbal and nonverbal utterances of the cultural other; 9. clarifying social and cultural expectations relating to genres, D/discourses, narratives, and positionings within these; 10. suspending premature positionings of the other in terms of social background, voices used, breadth of knowledge, preparedness of engaging with the other (linguistic competence may play an important role here, depending on which language is used); 11. using nonverbal, paraverbal, and metacognitive communicative strategies in terms of keeping the interaction going; 12. initiating the negotiation of common ground and rules for the interaction, and 13. applying strategies for expanding and differentiating one’s knowledge of the cultural Other and others (and, by implication, one’s intercultural third place).

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These elements of intercultural competence have to be applied on the spot in a selective, appropriate, and sensitive manner through methods that they must have been internalized during the process of fostering intercultural competence to such an extent that they have become second nature to the learner. If the learner has achieved this high standard of intercultural competence where the intercultural place has become the internalized genuine new basis of all intuitive thought, feeling, and behavior, the identity of the learner will also have changed. Identity is constantly under construction, as it is dependent on the sociocultural context, language, genre, narrative, ascription, and voice (cf. Chapter 6); all of these elements are constantly evolving in the long and sustained process of fostering interctultural competence. Constructs of identity are now informed not only by one dominant language and culture, but by a subjective blend of concepts, patterns, structures, values, and norms of two (or more) languages and cultures. Interculturally-based identity is characterized by cultural hybridity, which is not just a blend of existing cultural and linguistic configurations but, because the subjective mind is centrally involved in the blending process, the result of blending is more than the sum of the combination of cultural elements. Yoshikawa (1978: 220, cited in Kim 2009: 59) describes this intercultural surplus value as a unique subjective synergy which always results, for the subject, in more than the objectively authorized sum: “[W]hen one adds 1 to 1, one gets three, or a little more.” This intercultural surplus value can be defined as the subjective hybrid third place between languages and cultures in its generative effect on cognition, emotion, and behavior. New Discourses, genres, courses of action, concepts, and cultural patterns have become available to the subject in the process of developing intercultural competence, and these have been blended in a uniquely subjective manner with existing knowledge, emotions, and behavior so that the subjective intercultural place, although clearly informed by the languages and cultures involved, is at the same time somewhat detached from the dominant cultural Discourses. These have, of course, an impact on the individual’s stock of options for construal, but it is in the mind of the subject that these options are combined and modified in a unique manner, based on the subject’s memories, experiences, and desires which in turn have been informed by the individual’s participation in and exposure to the social life-world. It is this subjective blend of partially idealized elements of languages and cultures in the subjective mind of the learner which produces the subjective cultural surplus so characteristic of intercultural places. Another example of successfully negotiating a dynamic intercultural identity facilitated by immersion in another language and culture is Eva Hoffman’s detailed narrative of developing subjective third places between her native Polish and the American English language as a result of moving to Canada (and

380 | 10 Mediating and assessing intercultural competence in the L2 classroom subsequently to the USA) at the age of 13 years; it provides many examples of how the English language gradually becomes the medium of her inner speech (cf. Section 2.2.3). This long process starts with the unfamiliarity of sounds and signifiers of the L2; the signifiers are detached from the signified, and consequently new spaces are opening up in her mind because the sign is dislocated from its perceived natural relationship with objects, social habitus, and cultural patterns of construction: “The words I learn now don’t stand for things in the same unquestioned way they did in my native language. (. . . ) [T]his radical disjoining between word and thing is a desiccating alchemy, draining the world not only of significance but also of its colors, striations, nuances – its very existence. It is the loss of a living connection” (Hoffman 1989: 106–107). Here, Hoffman first refers to the rich connotations that have subjectively been attached to the sounds, words, and expressions of the L1 over the course of many years. Unlike subsequent languages, the L1 is the mother tongue in its true sense, given to the infant by others from birth onwards, because its subjective development is deeply intertwined with the growth of body, habitus, cognition, fantasy, and emotion (cf. Chapter 2 & Section 9.6). The mother tongue always holds a special and very personal place in the individual’s life because of the intimate interrelation between the conceptualizations, grammar, pragmatics, and sounds of the native language and the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral development of the individual. Learning a second language and its sociocultural context has the potential to dislocate these very subjective associations; however, new connotations and associations can arise from the process of learning of new sounds, words, and expressions which form part and parcel of the very subjective intercultural third place. When living in the host culture for a very long time and having interacted in the L2 as the main tool for everyday intersubjective communication, thus having developed intercultural competence to a very high degree, the L2 and its subjective connotations can ultimately replace the L1 as a medium of intersubjective interaction but also of inner speech. By the end of her book, Hoffman (1989: 272) concedes that English has become the language of her inner speech: “[A]t those moments when I am alone, walking or letting thoughts meander before falling asleep, the internal dialogue proceeds in English. I no longer triangulate back to Polish as to an authentic criterion, no longer refer back to it as to point of origin.” Hoffman seems to imply here that she has left the intercultural third place behind and has fully adopted the L2 as the natural medium of thought and interaction in its authentic sociocultural context. This may be seen as the long-term result of having successfully adapted to life in the new society and culture, thus having reconceptionalized one’s self through the new linguistic medium, including its underlying cultural patterns which may have been facilitated by Hoffman’s young age when she entered the world of the L2. The mother tongue may have been replaced by the

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L2 in many respects but some L1-related elements are still present, indicating that the third place is still relevant, even if the L2 has mostly replaced the L1 on the cognitive level. For instance, the close interrelations between the sounds, structures, conceptualizations and the growth of cognitive, emotional, psychological, and biological domains in infancy and early childhood is very difficult to duplicate in the L2 after the conclusion of adolescence. In particular, the age of 13 years (in the case of Hoffman) is a time in phonological development which some see as being beyond the sensitive period for the learning of authentic L2 sound production (cf. Section 3.5.1) so that, even if the learner has an excellent command of lexical, grammatical, syntactic, pragmatic, and semantic domains of the second language to a degree that the L2 has become the tool for inner speech, the accent may still be less than authentic for the L2 speech community. Thus, the perceived foreign accent may trigger positionings of this individual by members of the L2 language community as someone who has not been a member of the speech community from birth. These positionings in the passive may influence positionings in the active; however, the subject has at his or her disposal a range of options to position the self in a particular context. Identity, as presented by Yoshikawa and Hoffman in their accounts of intercultural competence, can be taken to be a hybrid, multilayered, dynamic, and polyphonic narrative construct that is mediated and maintained by socioculturally generated semiotic systems and by patterns of action. The intercultural dimension adds new possibilities for construing one’s identity, and these are typically experienced by the subject as liberating and empowering, as Yoshikawa describes in summing up his intercultural experience: “I feel I am much freer than ever before, not only in the cognitive domain (perception, thoughts, etc.), but also in the affective (feeling, attitudes, etc.) and behavioral domains” (Yoshikawa 1978: 220, cited in Kim 2009: 59). The cognitive, affective, and behavioral freedom is a liberation from the constraints of a monolingual and monocultural perspective; however, it has to be re-culturalized for concrete moments of social (inter-)action in order to facilitate successful intersubjective exchange. These moments of reculturalization are fleeting and transient moments, and they are executed from the somewhat detached position of the interculturally competent subject who is conscious of the range of options available for actions. The internalization of intercultural competence, however, means that the selection of concrete action is applied without deliberate effort; it is done in a subconscious and automated fashion, according to the immediate understanding of relevant contextual factors (similar to the unreflected acts of communication and behavior in the native culture), as Hoffman (cited above) seems to indicate. Interculturally hybrid identities are not smoothly negotiated identities between cultures; they have to rely on an understanding of the conflictual relationship between subjective and collective

382 | 10 Mediating and assessing intercultural competence in the L2 classroom identities, based on the internalized skill of empathy and the ability to judge and cooperate with (cultural) others. It also has to be acknowledged that the two witnesses cited here, Yoshikawa and Hoffman, are both highly regarded academics in the field of intercultural communication; thus they are fluent in the academic Discourse and aware of the research in this field. Consequently, they are able to strategically verbalize the indicators of their highly developed intercultural competence in a manner that is very persuasive, detailed, refined, and in tune with the requirements of the academic Discourse (which includes an awareness of what not to include in the autobiographical narrative). Most L2 learners cannot compete with these professionals in their characterization of their achieved level of intercultural competence in terms of register and depth of observation (e.g., the L2 learners interviewed by Coffey [2010], cf. Section 6.6. & Chapter 11); they are also largely unskilled in terms of emphasizing certain aspects of identity-transformation, while at the same time omitting others. This discrepancy between professional and ordinary L2 learners’ reflections may lead to frustration on the part of the latter, but it is more likely that the professional accounts of developing (and developed) intercultural competence in all its refined aspects can have a stimulating effect on L2 learners in terms of trying to reflect on their subjective intercultural experiences more deeply, guided by the quality of detail presented by the more knowledgeable others. Although characterized here as the final pedagogic principle of fostering intercultural competence, the effortless integration and application of intercultural competence to all acts of everyday behavior, emotion, and construction does not mean that the interculturally competent individual can now sit back complacently and rest on the laurels of his or her achievements. As mentioned before, fostering intercultural competence is an ongoing lifelong process without a precisely definable outcome (which also has implications for attempts to assess intercultural competence in an institutional setting; cf. Section 10.3). Consequently, in institutional L2 learning, the process of fostering intercultural competence guided by broad pedagogic principles is the primary objective of teaching and learning efforts, without necessarily achieving the advanced levels of challenging internalized cultural patterns of construal or developing subjective intercultural places which serve as the natural subjective basis for (inter-)action. Whatever level of intercultural competence has been reached by the end of formal schooling, the engagement in linguistic, social, and cultural activities, even at a very early stage of L2 learning, can have a significant effect on subjective acts of construal, once the assumed universality of the native cultural norms has been questioned. Rather than focusing on seemingly stable and fixed elements of culture, mediating culture in the L2 classroom has to center on these permanently shifting and emerging subjective third spaces within and between the two or more cultures involved

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which the learners construct in their ZPD. Thus, learning a L2 and its cultural context in a formalized institutional framework will lay the foundations for a lifelong continuation of developing intercultural hybrid places and their productive, rewarding, and pleasurable use in everyday life.

10.3 The challenge of assessing intercultural competence The pedagogic principles of fostering intercultural competence, as presented in the previous section, operate with concepts such as intercultural third spaces, inner speech, identity, genre, D/discourse, subject positionings, cultural frames of reference, plausibility structures, blending of spaces, schemata, frames, narrative, etc., each of which is highly dynamic, multi-layered, and culturally and subjectively charged. The dynamism and complexity of these cultural and subjective dispositions contribute to the problem of their assessability, particularly in an institutional schooling context, because they are not directly observable. An additional complicating factor for the activity of assessing intercultural competence is the fact that the terms intercultural and competence are both very complex and cannot be defined in a universally valid manner. Even the definition of the five sub-competences of intercultural competence by Byram (1997) which informs the use of the concept in this book (cf. Introduction to Chapter 9), cannot provide a concrete basis for testing, evaluating, and assessing intercultural competence in a precisely measurable manner.²⁵ Based on Byram’s model, Deardorff (2011: 40) proposes a slightly more general pyramid model of intercultural competence in which she makes a basic differentiation between “desired external outcomes” and “desired internal outcomes.” The external outcomes are measurable because they refer to that which is observable, namely “behaving and communicating effectively and appropriately (based on one’s intercultural knowledge, skills and attitudes) to achieve one’s goals to some degree” (Deardorff 2011: 40). Generally, this definition of external outcomes is reminiscent of the overall objective of the communicative approach to foreign language learning. This may be the reason for the reference to the intercultural context in brackets in the above citation

25 The terms assessment and testing are synonymous because they refer to “procedures to obtain information about student performance” (Woolfolk 2005: 504). The term evaluation, while closely related to assessment and testing, contains an element of “decision making about student performance and about appropriate teaching strategies” (Woolfolk 2005: 504) and thus transcends the data-collecting realm with regard to making judgments for improving students’ learning behaviors and achievements.

384 | 10 Mediating and assessing intercultural competence in the L2 classroom which, however, is not precisely definable or measurable. The desired internal outcomes are defined as follows: “Adaptability (to different communication styles and behaviors; adjustment to new cultural environments); Flexibility (selecting and using appropriate communication styles and behaviors; cognitive flexibility); Ethnorelative view; Empathy” (Deardorff 2011: 40). These internal outcomes are, due to their internalized status, hardly measurable in exact terms. They cannot be accurately verbalized for the purpose of assessment, and the behavior-based assessment of adaptability, flexibility, ethnorelativity, ability to suspend judgment and empathy can only be conducted in very broad terms, because the relevant context cannot be defined in a valid manner – and frequently it is artificial, for instance, with respect to using critical incidents for assessment purposes, which may induce superficial behavior on the part of the learner who may be aware of the assessment situation and consequently behaves in a manner he or she thinks is expected in order to get the desired mark. It is assumed that knowledge, skills, abilities, and attitudes develop in the general direction of ethnorelativity during the overall process of foreign language learning, resulting in increased flexibility and cultural adequacy of communicative behavior and openness for the other cultural system of meaning and significance; all this then contributes to observable intercultural behavior of learners. Schulz (2007) has highlighted the basic problem of intercultural assessment which has its roots in the complexity and dynamism of the constructs involved: Despite a vast body of literature devoted to the teaching of culture, there is, however, no agreement on how culture can or should be defined operationally in the context of FL learning in terms of concrete instructional objectives, and there is still less consensus on whether or how it should be formally assessed. (Schulz 2007: 10)

The assessment and evaluation of complex constructs such as intercultural competence, which involves the emotional, psychological, and identity-related domains of learners, is clearly highly dependent on the context in which they are used and on the subjects to which they are applied. Therefore, it would be ill advised to try to develop an internationally and cross-culturally valid design for intercultural assessment, because it would fall short of adequately capturing the finer strands of cognitive, emotional, and behavioral shifts of cultural frames of reference, as internalized and genuinely applied by the subject. Furthermore, there has to be clarity for the reasons, purposes, mechanisms, and objectives of assessing intercultural competence, since it touches upon deep-seated psychological traits and subjective constructs of identity (cf. Witte 2008). Possible reasons for assessing intercultural competence include the curiosity of learners to know what progress they have made during the learning process, or the professional interest of teachers and educationalists with regard to the adequacy

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and success of their teaching methods, or the longing of parents for information on the learning progress of their children in school. In the overwhelming majority of cases, the educational institution – typically the school or university – plays an important role because of its societal mandate to rate students according to their academic merit in terms of marks and grades. In order to ensure a fair rating process, national or regional departments of education normally define authoritative standards for education in syllabi for each school subject in terms of subject-matter and progression; these have to be taught and regularly tested in a seemingly objective manner. In recent years, the traditional orientation on input, which is difficult to assess objectively, has been replaced by an emphasis on learning outcomes, which allegedly facilitate a more precise and measurable assessment of pupils’ performances. On closer inspection, however, this optimism might be queried in several regards: 1. What exactly is being measured: superficial cognitive knowledge for the purpose of passing the next test or examination (after which it may be quickly forgotten), or holistic and procedural knowledge which has a long-term effect on the learner’s memory, constructs of identity, and which he or she can always behaviorally draw upon in everyday real-life situations? 2. What form does the assessment take? Are quantitative procedures used in which the whole group of learners is assessed simultaneously by having to answer the same (mainly cognitive) questions, or are qualitative and holistic techniques applied in which the subjective learning success and the potential of each individual learner (in terms of his or her ZPD) are analyzed with the constructive perspective of working out, in tandem with the learner, the optimal learning conditions? In short: does the assessment take an evaluative-summative or a dynamic-formative form? 3. Do adequate instruments and techniques exist for particular assessments? How meaningful can the subjective or collective evaluation of intercultural competence ultimately be, given the complexity of its inherent sociolinguistic, discursive, psychological, cultural, and intercultural dimensions? 4. In how far can (or should) psychological developments of the learner even be measured, for example, subjective character traits, attitudes, beliefs, and emotions, which are all sub-components of intercultural competence and which have to be verbalized for the purpose of assessment? Assessing and evaluating the different dimensions of intercultural competence is a very complex and difficult endeavor; it is highly dependent on the instruments, contexts and objectives, all of which can be very diverse. However, assessment can basically be differentiated into two approaches: the cognitive-instructivist and social-constructivist approaches. In the framework of the cognitive-instructivist

386 | 10 Mediating and assessing intercultural competence in the L2 classroom paradigm, teachers and other educational experts want to evaluate summatively in how far and to what extent the learners (within the referential context of the group of learners) have achieved the learning targets, as defined in the relevant syllabus. Particular emphasis is paid to the cognitive level of achievement, not least because of the societal mandate of the school as an institution charged with the task of rating students’ academic performance. This perspective on assessing and evaluating student performance foregrounds the acquisition of knowledge, its encoding, storage, and recall in tests and examinations. However, it is questionable as to how one can measure the subjective learning progress of the complex dimensions of intercultural competence when applying the quantitative criteria of validity, authenticity, reliability, and practicability (cf. Sercu 2004: 79– 84). The cognitive-instructionist approach, when applied to the development of intercultural competence, is primarily interested in the learner’s ability to recognize the difference in the beliefs, attitudes, and values of the other, and to tolerate this difference. Although this already entails a certain shift in the consciousness and the identity of the self, it does not extend to assessing the hybridization of consciousness and identity which is characteristic of the higher levels of developing intercultural competence (cf. Section 10.2). Referring to Deardorff’s (2011: 40) terminology, only external outcomes can be assessed by this approach, while internal outcomes are largely ignored. One example of the quantitative assessment of intercultural competence is the intercultural module of the large-scale DESI study (DESI = Deutsch Englisch Schülerleistungen International [German English Pupils’ Performances International]; cf. Section 10.1) that was conducted in Germany between 2001 and 2006 with 9,623 ninth-grade pupils, aimed at evaluating their intercultural competence with regard to English as a foreign language and culture (cf. Hesse and Göbel 2007). The intercultural module of DESI uses only two artificially constructed critical incidents in which critical interactional situations between members of the two language communities (British and German) are depicted, giving rise to unexpected culturally induced misunderstandings during interaction. Critical incidents have the potential to provoke reflection on the reasons for failed (or successful) communicative and other intersubjective activities, and encourage learners to put themselves in the position of the cultural other in terms of feelings and patterns of thought and behavior. However, critical incidents are frequently constructed by textbook authors with the explicit objective of making it easy for the students at their stage of learning to identify and comprehend the reasons for the particular misunderstanding. Consequently, critical incidents are often artificially composed and do not require a profound analysis of social structures and cultural patterns that could lead to a genuine fostering of awareness with regard to the modification of the internalized patterns of thought and behavior. Moreover,

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many of these artificially constructed critical incidents use simple essentialist cultural patterns in a contrastive manner. In the DESI project, pupils were given two critical incidents (which are unfortunately not provided by Hesse and Göbel 2007) and they were supposed to answer the following questions: “‘What has happened here?’ (Cognitive analysis of the situation); ‘How do the people feel in this situation?’ (Affective analysis of the situation); ‘How would you act in this situation?’ (Strategies of action); ‘What can be learned from this situation?’ (Transfer)” (Hesse and Göbel 2007: 265; my translation, A.W.). For every question, several answers are provided which have to be appraised by pupils in terms of adequacy and success for the situation. The answers of the 9,623 participating pupils were then quantitatively evaluated by the researchers, applying Bennett’s (1993) Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity (DMIS) (cf. Section 10.1), by noting the actual stage of developing intercultural competence for each pupil at the time of assessment. This procedure may fulfill “the criteria of a valid and reliable measurement procedure” (Hesse and Göbel 2007: 270; my translation, A.W.), but almost all relevant sub-competences of intercultural competence are completely disregarded, for example savoir comprendre, savoir apprendre/faire, savoir s’engager, and savoir être. Furthermore, it is questionable whether Bennett’s (1993) DMIS provides an adequate instrument for measuring intercultural competence in the L2 classroom, because it has been developed for a professional context and hence disregards foreign language learning and the development of the intercultural third place (cf. Section 10.1). The assessment procedures of the INCA project (INCA = Intercultural Assessment) that were developed by Byram and others operate with similar scenarios and critical incidents. However, they are presented in much more complex ways (based on texts or videos) and are evaluated in a more differentiated manner. Moreover, each scenario does not intend to make reference to all six dimensions of intercultural competence of INCA (based on Byram’s [1997] model) but, rather, they are conceptualized in such a manner that one sub-competence is emphasized at a time (although the scenarios typically include other components, too). The following scenario, for example, emphasizes and assesses emotional and rational traits of behavior: Scenario 4: Understanding Unexpected Behaviour One disadvantage of your work placement is that the weekends are rather lonely. You normally spend time with friends and family and you miss this social side of your life. At work you become friendly with a colleague who can speak your language. This colleague says that he will telephone to invite you to the house during the weekend. The telephone does not ring. There could be a number of explanations for this.

388 | 10 Mediating and assessing intercultural competence in the L2 classroom 1.

2.

On the Monday morning you decide to talk to a local colleague about this. How would you explain what had happened and how would you find out from the colleague what the explanation could be? Later in the morning you meet the colleague who did not phone. He/she tells you he/she could not phone because ‘My mother asked me to go shopping for her’.

Write a few lines as part of a letter/e-mail to your family telling them about this incident and explaining why it happened. (http://www.incaproject.org/en_downloads/10_INCA_tests_intercultural_encounters _instructions_eng.pdf: 4)

In addressing the two tasks to resolve the mystery, the learner has to draw on his or her intercultural knowledge and sensitivity. He or she has also to insert aspects of his or her subjectivity into the intercultural situation, because the ability to negotiate potentially face-threating situations is required, as is a generally open-minded and tolerant attitude and a sense of humor in the learner. Thus, the scenario is aimed at evoking internalized aspects of intercultural competence; a simple application of declarative knowledge would be insufficient to adequately address the interculturally sensitive situation. Grünewald (2012: 59–68) analyzes further examples of exercises aiming at the initiation and facilitation of intercultural competence. Grünewald comments that the critical incidents are supposed to stimulate culture-contrastive reflections by applying accumulated declarative knowledge; however, a deeper reflection which might include a transfer to the subjective situation of the learner almost never takes place (cf. Grünewald 2012: 61). This valuation is supported by a longitudinal study conducted by Kordes (1991: 287–288) in which, after having observed three years of teaching and learning French as a foreign language at the Oberstufe of a German Gymnasium (upper level of secondary school), he arrives at the conclusion that more than one third of the 112 students evaluated remained completely monocultural in their worldview, a small majority were able to achieve a very limited understanding of some aspects of the foreign culture (albeit with great difficulty), and only six pupils achieved a “transcultural stage” because they were able to identify to some degree with French cultural constructs, while at the same modifying their own internalized patterns to some extent. This disappointing outcome is certainly also a consequence of the fact that existing instruments and techniques for assessing pupils’ performance in the cognitive-instructive paradigm mainly rely on the measurability of cognitive knowledge of rules, facts, and behaviors which frequently remain at the level of sometimes indifferently learned information that was only superficially internalized and has no lasting effect on emotional or attitudinal domains of the learners. Therefore, they are hardly in a position to validly and comprehensively facilitate or evaluate the development of genuine third places on the part of learners. The

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schematic manner of teaching and learning often results in flippant learning and short-term memorization of the subject-matter with a view to passing the next test or examination. When the assessment is conceptualized and conducted in a summative manner with the aim of grading performance and institutionally rating pupils on this basis, as the cognitive-instructivist paradigm would imply, this institutional function suppresses a genuine evaluation of the subjective levels of intercultural competence and fosters short-term artificial behavior, designed to tick the right boxes of the expected outcomes. Therefore, this kind of assessment would not be suitable for initiating and advancing intercultural competence in a holistic sense for each individual learner in a subjective dimension. However, for the requirements of the educational institution (school or university) with regard to its societal mandate it has to implement, this restrained evaluation of certain sub-competences of intercultural competence makes sense, even if it cannot assess the enormously important and complex subjective constructs of pupils in terms of their current intercultural third place. A profoundly different goal-orientation and approach to testing, assessing, and evaluating intercultural competence is represented by the social-constructivist approach to teaching and learning which assumes that the activity of learning ultimately develops from subjective intentions; these, however, are not completely subjective but socioculturally induced (cf. Chapters 1–4). In the L2 classroom, every learner should be encouraged (with the sensitive guidance of the teacher and the peers) to bring his or her own inner self into the learning process. Learners cannot stand idly by and let the facts and figures go over their heads, but instead they have to be prepared to insert their selves to the process of learning and negotiating for learning, thus risking deep change. This is the reason for the failure of artificially construed critical incidents in assessing intercultural competence in the context of schooling: they remain far too much on the cognitive level and do not necessitate the transfer to the subjective stance of the learner. If the learning process concentrates on the progress of each individual student and his or her subjective situation and requirements, the activities of testing and assessing must center on the individual student, too, with the aim of targeted intervention in advancing the subjective processes of learning. The purpose of this kind of evaluation is not the objective assessment of the achieved level of learning with the aim of a summative rating of achievement, including the award of a certain grade, but it is the dynamic improvement of subjective learning progress, without any form of grading. In this context, the assumption of a progression from the simple to the complex in fostering intercultural competence has relevance for assessing the subjective progression of learning, because the definition of the different pedagogic principles provides a basis for the adequate tailoring of assessment with the purpose of advancing learners’ intercultural development. For instance,

390 | 10 Mediating and assessing intercultural competence in the L2 classroom the objective of Principle 6 could be the students’ ability to define the concept of worldview and give examples of ways in which it impacts on their behavior. The concept of Dynamic Assessment (DA) does not separate the domains of instruction and evaluation but treats them as two sides of the same coin. Conceptually, DA is anchored in Vygotsky’s (1978) theory of the “zone of proximal development,” or ZPD (cf. Section 9.5). DA does not aim at the retrospective assessment of achieved progress but it is aimed at the immediate future of the next learning zone of the individual learner: “DA is a future-in-the-making model where assessment and instruction are dialectically integrated as the means to move toward an always emergent (i.e. dynamic) future rather than a fixed endpoint” (Lantolf and Thorne 2006: 330). In this kind of evaluation, the assessors are not distanced and neutral figures, but they intervene in a constructive manner in the individual’s learning process.²⁶ Ideally, the assessment procedures should be integrated into the principles of fostering intercultural competence so that the assessment should also be characterized by a multidimensional, multiperspective, ongoing, aligned, and intentional approach. There are no formal tests and examinations, but only dynamic procedures of evaluation. This configuration implies that DA is unsuitable for the requirements of the typical institutional school context, with the possible exception of classes with only a very small number of students (thus facilitating an awareness of each student’s actual state of ZPD on the part of the peers and the teacher). However, DA makes sense in intercultural L2 classes at third level where class sizes tend to be small and learners have already achieved an advanced level of the L2 and its underlying cultural patterns and values. In fact, DA provides an ideal approach to assessing the pedagogic principles of fostering intercultural competence, as outlined in Section 10.2, because it is interested in the learner’s emerging learning in terms of achieved subjective development and potential development (Vygotsky’s notion of ZPD). Test instruments and techniques have been developed which form a compromise between the formative DA and the summative approach of the cognitiveinstructivist tradition. These instruments include role plays, scenarios, (authentic) critical incidents, questionnaires, simulation games, and project work. They lend themselves to the evaluation of (meta-)knowledge, skills of interaction, openness for others and Other, and stages of critical consciousness of culturally induced phenomena of (inter-)action. However, the fact that someone can act

26 If the assessment procedure does not focus on specific elements or dimensions of intercultural competence, but rather on the construct as a whole, then a team of assessors and evaluators is required to carry out the task because “assessment of intercultural competence is too large an undertaking to be implemented by one individual” (Deardorff 2009: 483).

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adequately in a role play and can display the required characteristics does not necessarily reveal the genuine ability of this individual to employ these behavioral traits in his or her habitual everyday life. After all, learning in a school context is always, to some degree, learning in an artificial environment with artificial objectives (e.g., passing the next test). Moreover, if these instruments are used for summative forms of assessment, there is the danger of essentializing and artificially standardizing the dynamics and complexities of culture and behavior, and also reducing the complexities of the learning process. Complex role plays, cultural simulation games, portfolios, interviews, and reflexive autobiographical diaries are ideally suited to the dynamic evaluation of actual subjective stances and sensitivities in the process of developing intercultural competence. The students are evaluated dynamically and holistically, because paths of learning, abilities, skills, beliefs, and attitudes, as well as subjective constructs in terms of interlanguage and interculture, form part of the evaluation; not only the results of learning activities, but also processes and developments of learning are included. The evaluation is dynamic and subject-centered, and it forms the basis for targeted individual advancement of the learning activities and processes of the individual learner in terms of the ability to shift one’s cultural frame of reference, integrate elements of the other culture into one’s subjective identity and behavior, and perform effectively and appropriately when interacting with cultural others. Fantini (2009) provides an overview of 44 assessment tools that have been designed specifically for assessing intercultural competence in its different manifestations (business, management, language development, counseling, literacy, etc.). However, none of these tools assess the development of subjective intercultural competence in terms of the centrally relevant intercultural third place. Fantini (2009) did not include in his list the “Autobiography of Intercultural Encounters” (Council of Europe 2009a; Byram 2009: 227–234), or AIE, which is an example of such a form of evaluation because it “focuses entirely on helping learners to analyze their own encounter with otherness” (Byram 2009: 224; emphasis added) by way of reflecting upon and describing their authentic experience of otherness. The AIE, however, is not primarily designed for use in typical state schools, because it presumes that learners have actually spent a period of time in the host culture or have had direct encounters with cultural others in their own cultural community, and it is aimed at making learners aware of the reasons for the success or failure of intercultural encounters (cf. Section 10.2).²⁷ For the AIE,

27 However, there is a version of AIE available which is designed for younger learners (up to the age of 11 years) in a school setting (cf. Council of Europe 2009b).

392 | 10 Mediating and assessing intercultural competence in the L2 classroom learners select and describe a specific intercultural encounter which they actually have experienced, guided by the structured AIE questionnaire, in order to analyze their subjective experience and identify aspects of their current level of intercultural competence with a view to developing their current competences further (cf. Principle 8). All sub-competences are included in the evaluation with regard to the respective subjective intercultural encounter or experience; they can be revisited at a later stage or in the context of subsequent different intercultural encounters, for example, “My first conversation in a foreign language,” or “The wrong day for Christmas” (Council of Europe 2009a: 4). The personal stance and subjectivity is brought into the learning process right from the beginning when the learner has to characterize his or her self in the very first exercise. This subject-focused approach is maintained in subsequent exercises, which all relate to actual personal experiences of the learners; they are not confronted with hypothetical situations or constructed scenarios. Examples for questions involving the learner as a subject include the following: If, when you look back, you draw conclusions about the experience, what are they? (. . . ) Did the experience change you? How? Did you decide to do something as a result of this experience? What did you do? Will you decide to do something as a result of doing this Autobiography? If so what? (. . . ) When you think about how you spoke to or communicated with the other people, do you remember that you made adjustments in how you talked or wrote to them? (Byram 2009: 225; cf. Council of Europe 2009a: 18–19)

This form of individual DA has the same drawback as all other forms of assessment, namely that intercultural competence is accessed via performance; the learners have to verbalize their innermost beliefs, emotions, attitudes, memories, desires, and apprehensions, which always leaves a remnant of implicit constructs that cannot be made explicit. On the other hand, learners are made aware of their achieved intercultural learning progress, and they are gently guided in the direction of the next possible zone of proximal development of intercultural competence. DA not only evaluates knowledge made explicit, but it also extends to implicit knowledge (or internal outcomes), including subjective sensitivities, attitudes, and abilities. The AIE, together with its specific form of DA, is presently the most valid instrument for assessing intercultural competence of intermediate and advanced learners who have spent a period of time in the L2 speech community. However, it would be questionable whether these subjective psychological traits could (or even should) be considered for institutional purposes of assessment, because they touch upon subjective character traits such as openness, intro- or extroversion, preparedness to take risks, patience, tolerance of ambiguity, ability to distance oneself from one’s own actions, emotions, sense of humor, and beha-

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vior. All of these may be valuable for developing intercultural competence, but their explicit assessment in the classroom would massively transgress the societal mandate of the institution of school. After all, school is supposed to mediate knowledge, abilities, skills and values in order to educate pupils to become mature and responsible persons, but it has no mandate to assess subjective traits of students’ psyches and characters. On the other hand, with ideal conditions (such as no pressures in terms of time and institutional requirements, as well as excellently trained teachers in terms of didactics and methodology of mediating intercultural competence and in terms of facilitating multifaceted and appropriate experiential learning opportunities for a small group of learners, but also for each individual learner), the AIE could be used as a guide for discussing intercultural classroom experiences by relating back to the very subjective feelings, behaviors, and shifts of cultural reference (cf. Principle 8). On the basis of performance observation (role play, simulations, dramas, videos), diary entries, portfolios, and interviews, the questionnaire of the AIE could be used to dynamically assess the learners’ current level of intercultural development by eliciting awareness on the part of learners as to what they have learned and how this experience has changed an aspect of their cultural frame of reference, or worldview. Questions could also be asked as to which elements of the experience were, from the learners’ point of view, particularly helpful (or not) for fostering intercultural skills, awareness, and abilities within at a certain pedagogic principle, as proposed in Section 10.2. However, it would be a desideratum for longitudinal research to compile culturally adequate learning tools and dynamic assessment instruments to validate (or falsify) the succession of pedagogic principles of fostering intercultural competence, as outlined in Section 10.2.

11 Conclusion Primary socialization into a speech community by a myriad of processes of incidental and spontaneous learning, mimicking, copying, and taking on the roles of others, be it in play or in social (inter-)action, has a formative effect on the mind of the subject (cf. Chapters 2 & 3). The infant increasingly experiences notions of self, Other, and others through direct interaction with relevant others, such as the mother, father, older siblings, playmates, relatives, neighbors, etc. This interaction, which can be verbal, visual, emotional, kinesic, and/or olfactory, stimulates the infant’s desire to interact more broadly and more efficiently, which results in him or her becoming an increasingly active, effective, and conscious member of the initially small community he or she has been interacting with. In this process, the semiotic tool of language is the main medium through which the meanings, beliefs, frames, and values of social and cultural life are communicated to the infant for him or her to appropriate, and through which he or she learns to become an full member of initially the small group, and subsequently the wider community and society (cf. Chapters 2 & 3). For the infant, in this early developmental phase, language is directly tied to activities, experiences, and objects. The acquisition of language implies the lingualization, socialization, and enculturation of the subject’s mind. Language as a semiotic tool is gradually internalised and used to regulate subjective mental activities, just as it regulates and co-ordinates the mental activities of all members of the speech community. The first language plays a fundamental role in structuring processes of voluntary thought and patterns of intersubjective communication; it transforms unmediated thought to egocentric speech and, finally, by about seven years of age, results in inner speech (cf. Chapter 2).¹ In this perspective, language is a social instrument which has to be adapted and internalized by the subject, including its inherent linguistic structures and sociocultural conceptualizations. Internalization operates with mimicry, imitation, but also appropriation, combination, and testing of hypotheses. Thereby, language has a transformative influence on the infant’s mind in that it facilitates volitional, decontextualized, categorical, and abstract thought; it is also intimately interwoven with the child’s social, emotional, cultural, and biological development. Unlike subsequently learned languages, the L1 is the mother tongue in its true sense, given to the infant by others from birth

1 Research with bilingual and multilingual children has shown that they seem to prefer one of their languages for their inner speech in most thought processes (cf. Winsler 2009: 22) or that they use the languages with moderate flexibility, according to context (cf. Carruthers 2002; CentenoCortés and Jiménz-Jiménez 2004).

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onwards; its subjective development is deeply intertwined with the growth of the body, of cognition and emotion. Despite this intimate connection between language and the subjective faculties of thought, action, and emotion, language cannot be used in a completely subjective or private manner. Rather, it is a sociocultural repertoire which the subject can adapt to his or her specific needs, purposes, and intentions. Therefore, the linguistic sign only exists as a carrier of meaning in a space between individuals: The word in language is half someone else’s. It becomes “one’s own” only when the speaker populates it with his own intention, his own accent, when he appropriates the word, adapting it to his own semantic and expressive intention. Prior to this moment of appropriation, the word does not exist in a neutral and impersonal language (it is not, after all, out of a dictionary that the speaker gets his words!), but rather it exists in other people’s mouths, in other people’s contexts, serving other people’s intentions: it is from there that one must take the word, and make it one’s own. (Bakhtin 1981: 293–294)

With this observation, Bakhtin emphasizes the embodied character of language; there can be no linguistic sign separate from meaning, emotion, intention, and other dynamic aspects of the mind (and communication). Like all other cognitive and emotional processes, linguistic concepts arise from the embodied nature of human existence and through subjective and collective experience. Bakhtin also emphasizes the role of language as an instrument for social cohesion and communicative coherence in everyday life. Language, in this view, cannot be disembodied or neutralized, neither in dictionaries (which, of course, can be consulted for semantic and lexical clarification) nor in grammars or abstract theoretical analyses which focus on language as a system; language is not “a dead product (ein Erzeugtes), but instead (. . . ) a generative process (eine Erzeugung)” (Shpet 1996: 55, cited in Wertsch 2009: 249). The social and generative quality of language eludes systematic analysis in terms of imposing rigorous structure and rules on language in intersubjective use (cf. Chapter 5). The subject can only produce an utterance by drawing on previous voices which have emerged within a particular speech community for particular purposes in a historical dimension, and tailor the utterance in such a way that it serves his or her particular communicative purposes at a given moment in time. Simultaneously, the potential reactions of the interlocutors have to be anticipated and observed; they also have to be woven into the utterance (cf. Bakhtin’s notion of addressivity, Section 4.1) which makes the utterance in its construction immediately responsive to anticipated or perceived reactions of others. This, in turn, can have an effect on the subject’s construals in terms of communicative intentions and goals, all playing into the actual realization of the utterance itself. The utterance has relevance only in the performative context where it is spread out in a space between the

396 | 11 Conclusion interactants; in this intersubjective space it is participatory in and informed by a particular Discourse and speech genre, open to modification and transformation by the interactants. However, as Gadamer (1975: 345) points out, the interaction often assumes “a spirit of own” and may reveal a new truth for the interlocutors (cf. Section 4.6). In order to achieve full membership of a speech community, the subject has to not only internalize the language and its inherent structures, conceptualizations, and mapping-potential, but also the underlying patterns of construal of the cultural community, its modes of thought and action, its beliefs, norms, plausibility structures, and its values (cf. Chapters 2 & 3), so that he or she can act, interact, and react immediately and appropriately in an automated and subconscious manner. In the early stages of childhood, the medium of internalization is mimicry and imitation, not in a purely repetitive way, but in a manner that absorbs what has been experienced, taking it from others and making it one’s own, according to one’s own genius. Thus, the child moves from the initial stage of other-mediation to that of self-mediation in the process of socialization, although self-mediation always retains a strong social and cultural imprint. In the process of L1 acquisition, language is not deliberately accessed as an abstract and isolated semiotic system per se (ein Erzeugtes), but is experienced by the child through participation in a variety of social activities so that the inherent conceptualizations, frames, schemata, mappings, stereotypes, plausibility structures, prototypes, genres, and Discourses are spontaneously and monothetically internalized in a specifically subjective manner, including the resulting subjective potential for construction and positioning. Language is internalized as a dynamic and versatile sociocultural artifact (ein Erzeugendes) and used to regulate subjective mental activities, just as it basically regulates and co-ordinates the mental activities of all members of the speech community (cf. Section 3.5.1). Thus, a language contributes not only to the social cohesion of the speech community, but also to the structural coherence of intersubjective thought processes, due to the generating and transformative effects of language on voluntary subjective thought (cf. Vygotsky 1986: 218; Chapter 2). Furthermore, acts of meaning are reinforced in everyday life by people acting out “the social structure, affirming their own statuses and roles, and establishing and transmitting the shared systems of value and knowledge” (Halliday 1978: 2). These social structures are developed and affirmed by symbolic interaction between people, based on internalized cultural patterns of interpretation; they may form a relatively normative habitus on social and individual planes (cf. Section 7.3). Culture in this context can be defined as distributed tacit (and to a lesser extent explicit) knowledge that provides a generative matrix for its members for cognitive and emotional behavior, which serves as a template for subjective and social existence. Thus, culture is not a static given, but is constantly constructed

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and reconstructed by its members through processes of dissension and inherent cultural difference. Culture is not an object (although it produces tangible manifestations such as buildings, books, paintings, technical apparatus, etc.); rather, it is a matrix that does something to the human mind (cf. Street 1993) by providing it with certain choices of action and construal, while at the same time excluding others. These choices amount to a life-world and a worldview which influence subjective and collective efforts of construction to such an extent that they are taken for granted and are typically not questioned at all by the members of a cultural community; Humboldt (1971: 40; cf. Section 3.5) refers to these dispositions as the “cosmic viewpoint” applied by the subject to all activities of thought and (inter-)action. The massive impact of cultural patterns, social structures, and linguistic conceptualizations on the mind, emotion, and behavior of the subject also affects constructs of identity, because: “People operate with the meaning available to them in discourse and fashion a psychological life by organizing their behavior in the light of these meanings and integrating them over time. The result of this integrative project is a personality or character that is, to the extent permitted by the discursive skills of the subject/agent, coherent and creative” (Harré and Gillet 1994: 143). Notions of self, constructs of identity, and discursive positionings (in the active) are all facilitated by the internalized linguistic categories, social structures, and cultural patterns of construal. Language, appropriated by subjects to different standards, provides the tool for reflective and narrative construals of personal and social identities and is thus also the nucleus for dynamic change of these constructs. The linguistic and D/discursive spaces for facilitating these constructs are not restricted to the “real world”, but also include socioculturally woven “webs of significance” (Geertz) and imagined possible worlds. However, within the Discourses and genres available to the subject, his or her constructs of identity have to be socially performed so that others can react to them in a meaningful way (e.g., by assigning certain positionings to the subject; cf. Chapter 6). In this seemingly comfortable monolingual and monocultural situation (which is a construct in itself; cf. Principle 1 of Section 10.2), the L2 classroom provides a hugely important space for the subjective reconstruction of deeply internalized native values and beliefs, because it is in this plurilingual space that learners, often for the first time, become acutely aware of the relationship between their language and their thoughts (cf. Kramsch 2009a: 4–5). The process of L2 acquisition makes learners aware of some elements of the tacit knowledge that has been monothetically internalized in primary socialization, thereby increasingly rendering conscious the linguistic and cultural relativity of these constructs. This growing socio-linguistic and cultural awareness and, by implication, selfawareness, can have an unsettling effect on subjective constructs of identity, in

398 | 11 Conclusion that the center of construction is becoming increasingly de-centered in terms of linguistic, social, and cultural affirmation of the self. Therefore, sensitive intercultural learning has to be constructively cognizant of the sociocultural imprint of constructs of socially agreed “reality” and the subjectively construed identity of the L2 learner (cf. Chapters 6 & 9). L2-mediated, Discursive, social, and cultural constructs function as a catalyst for activating and negotiating subjective intercultural third spaces of construal. The intentional and deliberate engagement with cultural patterns, values, norms, and beliefs in the L2 classroom as a community of practice marks the cultural transformation of the learner’s immanent mental dominance of L1-mediated constructs in the direction of dynamic intercultural places in a continuum of spaces in-between cultures (cf. Chapter 9). This process has been likened to that of a tertiary socialization because of its transformative effect on the self (cf. Byram 2008: 31; Section 9.6). At first, the L1 provides the semiotic means and the opportunity to consciously gain access to and reflect upon the meanings of a second language and its sociocultural context, but in the course of L2 learning the semiotic power moves in the direction of the L2. As a result, the space of semiotic negotiation for meaning becomes increasingly located in a continuum between the L2 and the L1 and their respective sociocultural contexts which are also part of the wider intercultural language game in the subjective mind, due to the structuring influence of cultural frames on conceptualizations and plausibility structures (cf. Chapter 3). In the process of learning the L2, semiotic gaps begin to open up with regard to the L2 and the L1 which have to be filled by the learner, structurally scaffolded by the teacher and other relevant others (such as peers). In the early phase of L2 learning, due to the fundamental lack of access to L2-mediated constructs, these gaps tend to be filled by the L1 and L1-mediated constructs and configurations; processes of translating L2-mediated phenomena are predominantly based on these internalized L1-mediated constructs. However, this procedure is insufficient and for the L2 learner unsatisfactory, because it distorts contextual L2 meaning to a significant degree (cf. Sections 8.3 & 9.2). By contrast, the advanced L2 learner tends to fill these gaps by subjectively negotiated constructs sourced in both languages and cultures involved in the learning process, influenced by personal memories, experiences, and desires, and negotiated within the cultural and intercultural matrixes available to him or her. This process involves the first language and culture of the learner and the L2 in its cultural context; therefore the gaps which open up are defined in this book as intercultural and not transcultural because the latter approach, in its ambition to overcome traditional boundaries, seems to position itself above existing cultures, thus detaching itself from existing cultural systems of meaning and values and creating its own original lifestyle beyond the constraints of any historically evolved human culture (cf. Chapters 1 & 8).

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In verbal interaction, the gaps which open up for the subject between the languages and cultures in intercultural communication have to be filled on the spot in order to keep the communicative flow alive, be it in the L2 classroom or in an immersion situation. However, there is always more than just one option available to fill the gap (cf. Bakhtin’s [1981: 276] notion of the “elastic environment of other, alien words about the same object,” as discussed in Section 4.1), taking into consideration the requirements of the history and force of the interaction, expectations of the interlocutors, and the requirements of the genre and Discourse. The level of access to both L1 and L2-related linguistic, semiotic, Discursive, and cultural knowledge, influenced by affective states, has an effect on how the gaps are filled by the learner. However, the L2 classroom provides a pedagogical framework in which the stream of L2 communication can be interrupted in order to discuss the reasons for the (in-)adequate and (in-)appropriate use of certain linguistic, cultural, emotional, or behavioral aspects. Furthermore, the L2 classroom provides a space for communal and subjective reflection, verbalization, and discussion of one’s momentary subjective understandings of the gaps and how they ought to be filled in terms of a range of potential solutions, depending on the differential construals of context (including genre, plausibility structure, frame and D/discourse). As outlined in the pedagogic principles presented in Section 10.2, reflection on and autobiographical narration of one’s positioning within the dynamic third space contributes significantly to the awareness of one’s present level of intercultural competence in terms of achievement and further potential. Like Bennett’s (1993) DMIS, the set of principles presented in Section 10.2 assume a gradual shift of cultural frames from ethnocentric to ethnorelative stances, as facilitated by sensitive intercultural learning experiences that transcend the cognitive realm. In contrast to Bennett, this complex process is not just presumed to be an expansion of existing knowledge and values but a fundamental subjective transformation of cognition, emotion, and behavior, centered on the dynamic subjective intercultural third place, and achieved by blending concepts and constructs between languages and cultures as part of the process of mediating and fostering intercultural competence. The development of intercultural competence does not follow a linear progression, but can be cyclical, circular, and sometimes even regressive. This may make the mediation of intercultural competence in classroom settings more difficult and complex, but it provides no rationale for the often rather superficial treatment of cultural traits in the early and intermediate stages of L2 learning (cf. Chapter 1). On the contrary, the deliberate and meaningful consideration of how our perceptions of self, Other and others are shaped by both our embodied experience in the world and culturally based ontologies (what is there) and epistemologies (how we know) should be given much more emphasis, even in early and intermediary L2 learning, with the purpose of

400 | 11 Conclusion making us aware of the linguistic and cultural relativity of our conscious being and of the gradual changes in our cultural frames of construction. Narration and constant reflection on one’s momentary positioning with regard to the dynamic intercultural third space is an integral part of fostering intercultural competence in the L2 classroom, be it in writing (which provides learners with a more reflective space to indulge and cultivate their experience of difference and otherness),² imaging (cf. Section 10.2, Principle 3), or in direct interaction with peers (within the classroom and beyond, for example, by using digital media; cf. Section 10.2, Principles 4–9). It has at its center subjective processes of blending spaces between the constructs of languages, societies, and cultures in the mind of the learner. Narration reduces the complexity of “reality” in a subjective view and can therefore provide deep insights into even minute subjective changes in cognition, emotion, and behavior of the learner. Stimuli for reflective narration of one’s changing positioning include negotiation for meaning through active and holistic engagement in role plays, critical incidents, project work, cultural simulation games, and electronically-mediated reflective interaction with authentic cultural others; all of these activities transcend the cognitive dimension. Activity theory, for example, provides a useful framework for collaborative L2 learning in terms of planning and conducting actions and operations, thus involving emotional, cognitive, social, behavioral, and metacognitive dimensions (cf. Section 5.3). Intentional and reflective L2 learning in a holistic manner, as proposed here, has an impact on learners’ constructs of identity in terms of decentering and hybridizing, to a far greater degree than normally occurs intraculturally. Some academics are of the opinion that for L2 learners who have become interculturally de-centered in the course of learning a L2 and developing intercultural competence, “the real problem is not how to build identity, but how to preserve it” (Bauman 1995: 88). However, the problem of preserving one’s identity when engaging with the constructs of another cultural community is unsolvable for several reasons: firstly, identity is a process, not a condition (cf. Chapter 6); therefore it makes little sense to “preserve” it (even within the L1 and L1-mediated Discourses and constructs). Secondly, when negotiating for alternative potentials of construals of self, Other, and world, as offered by the other culture, language, and society, it is impossible to remain immune from their influences in terms of attitudes, behaviors, norms, plausibility structures, values, and beliefs. Thus, the learner

2 The term “writing” is used here in the broader sense of literacy, as defined in Section 10.2; it includes visual and media literacy so that “writing” also refers to other reflective activities and media such as painting, filming, collaging, etc.

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develops increasingly hybrid constructs of identity and positionings which oscillate between the languages and cultures involved. The advanced L2 learner constantly mediates between the linguistic, cultural, and social systems, “belonging” neither to the one nor to the other, hence positioning himself or herself in-between these configurations. These processes of linguistic and sociocultural translation and blending take place on cognitive, affective, and behavioral levels, facilitated by “participatory appropriation” (Rogoff 1995: 142; cf. Section 7.4.) in an experientially-based L2 classroom (or, for unstructured L2 acquisition by migrants, by conscious and deliberate immersion in all relevant aspects of the L2 community). The experience of living in another speech community for a long time and actively engaging with its people and their internalized sociocultural constructs, or learning a second language and culture to an advanced level in an educational context, situated in the native socioculture, ultimately has, therefore, an enriching and liberating effect on the mind of the L2 learner, in that situations of ambiguity can be dealt with more consciously and confidently, and cultural difference is perceived, not as a threat, but as a means of enhancing and broadening one’s constructs of identity.³ Hybrid identities may even tend to become deterritorialized in the sense that one no longer predominantly feels to be a member of the native cultural community, which does not mean, however, that one can choose one’s identity freely and on the spot. An interculturally-based hybrid identity emerges from the ongoing subjective interaction with manifestations, constructs, and patterns of the L2-culture, while still owing loyalty to the first language culture (albeit decreasingly). Identity in this sense is the result of attempting to resolve subjective experiences of the Other. Coffey (2010), for instance, provides experiences of Britons who have been living abroad for a long time; most of these individuals felt the necessity of deliberately detaching themselves from national constructs of British identity, for example, the archetypal British bulldog spirit (Coffey 2010: 72; cf. Section 6.6). One person interviewed by Coffey (2010: 72) goes a step further by stating: “I don’t have much of an identity. I am internationalist through and through.” This individual seems to have lost his subjective attachment to simple constructs of national identity and sees himself

3 However, as mentioned in Section 6.6, hybrid, dynamic, and interculturally-based concepts of identity have the potential to undermine simplistic narratives of citizenship operating with monolithic national identities, thus undermining simplifying concepts of patriotism and nationalism which view the identification with other languages and their inherent cultural frames of mind with skepticism. On the other hand, some minority communities might deliberately keep some of their native linguistic and cultural features in order to preserve their distinct social identity (cf. Section 6.4).

402 | 11 Conclusion as “internationalist,” or transcultural. This may be a result of having experienced other national Discourses of identity which tend to erect barriers between nationalities; when living in another “nation,” the attention of the subject may be drawn to these constructs in a more urgent way, compared to a situation of living in the home nation where one is not normally confronted with the need to reflect on these issues.⁴ The perceived loss of national identity, described in the above citation as “not having much of an identity,” is more than compensated by the broader-based, more flexible, dynamic, and hybrid intercultural constructs of identity which may be more differentiated, consequential, and generative in terms of personal development than definitions of mere “national” identities; this is a result of having gained deep access to more than one system of meaning and positioning. The characterization of this condition as “not having much of an identity” is too one-dimensionally orientated around simplistic constructs of national identity while not paying sufficient attention to the more succinct strands of personal, D/discursive, narrative, and hybrid identities. However, as was shown in Chapter 6, identity is always a dynamic and multilayered process (and not a state), even within the framework of one language, culture, and society. If the monocultural pluralization of identities “disrupts the social ontology of the subject itself (. . . ) as the internal impossibility of the subject as a discrete and unitary kind of being” (Butler 1995: 446), then second language acquisition fundamentally extends this process by opening up genuinely new and differential spaces for intercultural subjective positioning, crosscultural conceptual blending, and culturally discursive constructions of self, Other, and world. In order to gain entry to the consequential intercultural third space, the L2 learner has to break with taken-for-granted attitudes and look through the lenses of various ways of knowing, seeing, hearing, and feeling in a conscious endeavor to impose different orders on experience. The goal of L2 learning is not to replace the familiar categories of the first language and culture with the categories of the L2 and its sociocultural context, but “to de-familiarize and de-centre, so that questions can be raised about one’s own culturally-determined assumptions and about the society in which one lives” (Byram 2008: 31). The purpose of L2 learning in this context, then, is to develop a conscious intercultural third place of construal which “belongs” neither to the native nor to the foreign culture, but

4 In the wake of the recent rise of radical nationalist attitudes (and parties, such as the British National Party, the French Front National, the Hungarian Jobbik Party, or the German National Democratic Party) across Europe, however, one might be directly confronted by these simplistic, yet apparently forceful constructs when trying to resist (or promote) them in the context of their violent manifestations.

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is grounded in a transitional space in-between these cultures, as, for example, the people interviewed by Coffey (2010) and, more eloquently, professional academics in intercultural communication such as Kaplan (1993; cf. Section 10.2), Yoshikawa (1978; cf. Chapter 9), and Hoffman (1989; cf. Section 10.2) have convincingly illustrated. Hoffman characterizes the process of developing third places in rather negative terms as a process of losing the authentic voice, as previously facilitated by the mother tongue, with all its subjective connotations and automatisms for private and social language use, and the violent replacement of this original voice by that of cultural others: “Since I lack a voice of my own, the voices of others invade me as if I were a silent ventriloquist. (. . . ) Eventually, the voices enter me. I am being remade, fragment by fragment, like a patchwork quilt” (Hoffman 1989: 219–220; emphasis added). This process of adopting the voices of others seems to be akin to the process of acquiring the first language from others (cf. Chapter 2); however, these are voices of cultural others who are interacting in a different language, with different conceptualizations, plausibility structures, values, beliefs, and frames of mind, and they are being adapted by someone who, at of 13 years of age (when Hoffman arrived in Canada), already has a firm linguistic and conceptual grounding in another language (Polish). In her statement, Hoffman points to mental blending processes in which the elements of her subjectively internalized Polish culture (“voice of my own”) are slowly overshadowed, minimized, blended, and ultimately replaced by the L2 and its cultural frames to an extent that she feels she does not have a voice of her own any more. Hoffman depicts this process in a manner that leaves her in a passive role, while it is the other cultural and linguistic voices that assume the active roles and do something to her mind and to her positioning (both in the active and in the passive), even if she may not agree with these transformations. While this may be the case in an immersion situation, the intercultural L2 classroom puts much more emphasis on the deliberate, scaffolded, and reflective co-construction of knowledge and intercultural spaces so that the L2 learner is always aware of his or her learning efforts and the consequences in terms of positioning, as well as mental and psychological developments within the third space (cf. Section 10.2). The autobiographical narratives presented by Kaplan, Yoshikawa, and Hoffman clearly demonstrate that the mere physical presence in another community is insufficient to stimulate the fostering of the third place; they constantly reflect upon the cognitive (and emotional) changes and their present position between the languages, D/discourses, frames, narratives, and cultures, constantly reconceptualizing their selves in the initially new semiotic medium of the L2. This leads to a process of developing dynamic intercultural spaces, which can, at times, be an unsettling experience, seen by Hoffman as the invasion of voices of cultural others. The invasion (with its connotation of military force) is depicted as being

404 | 11 Conclusion akin to a natural force; however, the subject does not have to surrender to this process since he or she can play an active part in it, allowing for the level and scope of this invasion, based on his or her exposure to the linguistic and cultural systems of meaning, guided by personal circumstances and intentions. By constant reflection on one’s situation in the new cultural community, fossilization and resignation are avoided, and the resulting intercultural positionings are perceived as a principally liberating and personally enriching experience.⁵ Even if the three protagonists have reached the very advanced level where the L2 has become the medium of inner speech in many contexts, they have not completely lost their native languages (English, Japanese, and Polish respectively) as a medium for inner speech (cf. Section 2.2.3) and their native cultural frames of reference for construction (due to the deep imprint left on the mind and psyche of the subject during the fundamental interaction of L1 acquisition and mental development in the process of primary socialization; cf. Chapters 1–4). Their subjective intercultural third places can be characterized as typical for those of very advanced L2 learners (cf. Section 10.2), as something unique in terms of intercultural surplus value in a subjective dimension that transcends culture-specificity and facilitates the emergence of a new quality of self-awareness which is “born out of an awareness of the relative nature of values and of the universal aspect of human nature” (Yoshikawa 1978: 220, cited in Kim 2009: 59). The relativity of linguistic and cultural constructs facilitates processes of blending and fusing concepts across languages and cultures. The mind of the learner is not a passive pawn in this interplay (as Hoffman seems to insinuate), but it can willfully direct activities of negotiating and blending to certain configurations (rather than others) and emphasize particular aspects in the blends, such as certain subjective experiences or particular cultural frames. The generic space in the intercultural blends is, therefore, characterized by a gradual shift of semiotic power from the L1 and its cultural contexts to the L2 and its cultural contexts. However, in this dynamic and evolving situation, universal aspects of human living (such as birth, death, housing, eating, sleeping, interacting, loving, etc.) can also have an important stabilizing and structuring influence on the subjective intercultural blending processes; this is an aspect that Fauconnier and Turner (2002) neglected in their construct of the generic space within the blend.

5 On the basis of these clearly positive traits, the title of Hoffman’s (1989) book “Lost in Translation” seems very negative; from this perspective the phrase “Gained in Translation” (Shields 2000) might have more appropriately captured the enriching and transformative effects of her immersion in the anglophone linguistic, social, and cultural environment.

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Fauconnier’s (1997) and Fauconnier and Turner’s (2002; 2008; cf. Section 4.7) model of blending mental spaces has been transferred in this book from the purely cognitive domain (for which it was originally developed) to other domains, such as emotions, attitudes, activities, and cultural frames (albeit in a more metaphorical manner). In their model of blends, the generic space scaffolds the blending process of the different input spaces by using the structuring forces of culturally generated and maintained frames, concepts, prototypes, schemata, plausibility structures, and conceptual metaphors of the cultural community (cf. Chapter 3). When the blending process takes place across cultures, as is the norm in intercultural settings, the generic space loses much of its cultural framing power which in turn tends to be shifted to subjective elements of integrating personal experiences, memories, fantasies, and perceptions. The processes of blending spaces between languages and cultures initially have the tendency to draw mainly upon the input spaces of the first language, culture, and society. However, in the course of learning the L2, the dominance of L1-mediated input spaces decreases, as the structures and patterns of the other language, society, and culture are increasingly better understood in their complexity, and integrated into the subjective potential for blending and construal. The gradual shift of semiotic power from cultural to intercultural frames is not completely arbitrary; the level of intercultural subjective knowledge is based on the subject’s access to and understanding of the cultural frames (in the plural). Therefore, the generic space still has a structuring influence on the blending process, albeit subjectively filtered in an intercultural constellation, thus putting more emphasis on subjective bearings on the blending process (e.g., memories, experiences, fantasies, and desires). The learners do not just blend “the” existing elements of cultures and languages, but they blend blends of blends (or “idealized representations;” Kramsch 2009a: 75) they have constructed (consciously or not) for themselves over time within a larger network of blends; these are then appropriated to their momentary understandings and specific needs in a particular situation. Hence, the process of blending also includes processes of idealizing, appropriating, adopting, and aligning cultural, conceptual, and linguistic elements in a subjective fashion. The most important contributor to this process is the mind of the subjective learner, as it is the agent undertaking the blending processes within the cultural frameworks of reference involved and his or her subjective realm of experiences, memories, fantasies, and desires. However, affective states of the learner also influence the cognitive blending processes (cf. Section 4.7); both the subjective mind and emotional elements are very dynamic configurations, and in the process of L2 learning they will gradually shift from predominantly monocultural to intercultural spaces.

406 | 11 Conclusion The integration of the partial structures of the two separate input spaces into a single blended structure, scaffolded by the generic space, creates a third domain with its own emergent structures. The difference between intracultural and intercultural blending of spaces consists of the different cultural organizations of subjectively filtered background knowledge for the generic space (but also for the input spaces), in addition to the culturally diverse content of at least one of the input spaces. Typically, tacit cultural knowledge is effortlessly (and normally subconsciously) applied in intracultural mental space-blending, which is generated without deliberate cognitive effort, or, as Fauconnier and Turner (2002: 49) put it, it is generated “on the fly.” By contrast, intercultural blending requires, at least for the ab initio and intermediate levels of L2 learning (i.e., Principles 1–4; cf. Section 10.2), deliberate effort in terms of “a quasi-total reconstruction of the cognitive configurations prompted by one language and a determination of how another language would set up a similar configuration with a radically different prompting system and prestructured background” (Fauconnier 1997: 189). These processes of almost complete reconstruction have to be deliberately learned and acquired by L2 students in a reflective manner over a sustained period of time. In the context of exploring and experiencing differential constructs of the L2 cultural community, the differences can be put in words or images, which can be narrated and discussed in the L2 classroom, not in a distanced and formal manner, but in a way that focuses on the respective subjective understandings and interpretations (or blends) of these configurations. Reflective narration and discussion can provide ideas, perspectives, and angles of understandings of (inter-)cultural spaces for each member of the classroom community, which may have eluded the individual learner when left to his or her own devices. When processes of blending are explicitly introduced to classroom discussions, even marginal shifts in the generic space, but also in the input spaces and the resulting blend, can be dissected in their combinations and their creative potentials from subjective and collective points of view. This procedure has the function to make learners aware, not only of the similarities and differences in the cultural patterns of construal between the cultural communities, but also of the detailed cognitive architecture of construing novel meaning by blending mental spaces in intra- and intercultural contexts. In this context it is important to construe all the elements of the blend, that is, the generic space, the two (or more) input spaces, and the resulting blend, as flexible and dynamic configurations which are firmly (yet transiently) rooted on the borderline between subjective memories, experiences, feeling, and desires and sociocultural semiotic and framing devices, such as linguistic concepts, plausibility structures, prototypes, frames, schemata, stereotypes, and conceptual metaphors. Therefore, it becomes apparent to the L2 learners that there cannot be an objective “reality”

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with the same validity for all members of the community, but only an intersubjectively negotiated and agreed “reality,” be it in the L2 classroom community, the home of L2 learners, other communities of practice, or the speech community at large. The levels of agreement of “reality” can vary and sometimes do not overlap at all with regard to the same configuration, as Fauconnier and Turner (2002) exemplified with the different blends of protagonists in the Japanese “image club” (cf. Section 4.7). Therefore, the explorative learning process itself has to be left to the group of L2 learners as much as possible and, ultimately, to the subjective learner, because they actively blend cultural and linguistic concepts, based on their very subjective experiences, memories, fantasies, and level of access to the L2 and the L1 and their respective cultural contexts. It should also leave sufficient leeway for imagination, creativity, and fantasy, for instance, in terms of constructing counterfactual situations or possible worlds so that the momentum of subjective engagement will not be lost. If language can be understood in terms of language games (Wittgenstein 1953; cf. Section 5.1.1), the element of game,⁶ in the sense of creatively trying out (or playing with) new constellations and constructs on the basis of rules acquired by the L2 language game, must be emphasized in early and intermediate L2 learning; this includes the spontaneous construction of possible scenarios or imaginative situations. Consequently, the learning environment has to be adequately tailored to each learner’s subjective ZPD; it must be characterized by the facilitation of rich learning experiences so that the learners can, collaboratively and subjectively, make their own discoveries with regard to developing subjective blends with the other linguistic, conceptual, and (inter-)cultural spaces, but also with regard to the relativity of their deeply internalized cultural constructs of self, Other, and others: Successful learning environments allow participants to see themselves as responsible contributors in a dynamic language environment that allows them to question the status quo, give answers in areas where they feel a sense of accomplishment and achievement, respond without censure, absorb new knowledge through experience, and disseminate knowledge among accepting adults and peers. (Ball 1998: 243–244)

Thus, the L2 classroom has to stimulate all features of the learner’s self so that he or she is prepared to engage in the learning process as an embodied subject in order to put the self at risk; fostering subjective intercultural places is impossible to achieve from a mentally and emotionally detached position. The development of intercultural competence gradually transforms different layers of knowledge

6 In German, the term Spiel refers to both game and play.

408 | 11 Conclusion (e.g., cultural self-awareness, culture-specific knowledge, sociolinguistic awareness), attitudes (respect, openness, curiosity, and discovery), and skills (observation, listening, evaluating, analyzing, interpreting, and relating). When negotiated in the L2 classroom (or in reflective immersion situations), the existing subjective attitudes, knowledge, and skills (not understood as fixed and stable entities, but as dynamic and flexible configurations) are developed in terms of flexibility, adaptability, ethnorelativity, and empathy (cf. Section 10.2). These intercultural traits are not only exhibited in the L2 classroom, but are also ideally applied in the ordinary everyday behavior of the advanced learner, thus constituting what Yoshikawa (1978: 220, cited in Kim 2009: 59; cf. Section 10.2, Principle 9) defines as the intercultural surplus value of having achieved a high level of intercultural competence in terms of a uniquely subjective synergy which always results in more than the sum of the interculturally blended parts for the subjective mind, but also for subjective emotion and behavior. In the process of mediating this high degree of intercultural competence, it is important to occasionally step back and reflect on the learning process and the progress achieved in order to create and maintain learners’ awareness of their current level of subjective intercultural development. From this platform, the next immediate level of fostering intercultural competence in the learner’s ZPD can be consciously tackled; in this regard, the proposed model of pedagogical principles for mediating intercultural competence (cf. Section 10.2) can provide a useful framework. Language-rich and varied exercises can also contribute to the intentional development of L2 private and inner speech. For very advanced L2 learners with this high degree of intercultural competence, the blending of spaces within and between languages and cultures, and the ability to use L2 for inner speech, has ideally become an internalized habitus that is tacitly employed and performed in all situations of everyday life. Thus, the gaps that opened up in early and intermediate L2 learning have now subjectively been closed; they have turned into creative places of construction and enunciation for the subject, located in a continuum between symbolic systems and cultural frames.

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Name index Adler, Peter 319 Ahearn, Laura 94, 101 Ahmed, Mohammad 34, 57 Ahmed, Sara 34 Alford, Danny 99 Altmayer, Claus 205, 294, 344 Alvarez, Julia 303 Andersen, Tom 29 Anderson, Benedict 202, 207 Appel, Gabriela 57 Aristotle 174 Atkins, Beryl 79 Augoustinos, Martha 86 Austin, John 7, 23, 149, 150–152, 159, 163, 168, 172 Bach, Johann Sebastian 135 Bachmann, Lyle 156, 157 Bachmann-Medick, Doris 209, 215, 240, 246, 252 Bachtsevanidis, Vasili 343, 344 Bakhtin, Mikhail 14, 109–115, 122, 123, 147, 152, 183, 194, 220, 235, 236, 250, 285, 290, 395, 399 Baldwin, Elaine 126, 185, 241 Ball, Arnetha 407 Bamberg, Michael 124 Barlow, Jack 89 Barsalou, Lawrence 77–79, 286 Barthes, Roland 116, 219, 220 Bartlett, Frederic 83 Baudrillard, Jean 219 Bauman, Zygmunt 118, 400 Bechtel, Mark 357 Bee, Helen 39, 42, 75 Benjamin, Walter 95, 248, 249, 277, 351 Bennett, Milton 21, 27, 314–322, 328, 354, 387, 399 Berg, Eberhard 188 Berger, Peter 75, 76, 106, 268, 275 Berko Gleason, Jean 43 Berlin, Brent 99 Bhabha, Homi 206, 233, 236–239, 242, 244, 245, 252, 254

Bigelow, Martha 272 Bittencourt, Robson de Souza 222 Blackledge, Adrian 175, 184, 189 Block, David 176, 238, 362 Blommaert, Jan 123, 304 Boas, Franz 95 Bochner, Stephen 363 Boesch, Ernst 227 Bomba, Paul 78 Borchert, Wolfgang 358, 360, 361 Bourdieu, Pierre 22, 178, 207, 223, 224, 258, 329 Bowerman, Melissa 29, 30, 32, 42, 100 Boyer, Pascal 74 Bracher, Mark 308, 331 Bredella, Lothar 231, 241, 242, 258, 304, 326, 357 Brenner, David 324 Briggs, Charles 118 Bruner, Jerome 13, 14, 18, 41, 120, 176, 210, 213 Bühler, Karl 7, 149 Burr, Vivien 124, 290 Butler, Judith 175, 402 Byram, Michael 9, 158, 178, 257, 261, 264, 265, 302, 311, 321, 346, 357, 369, 372, 373, 375, 383, 387, 391, 392, 398, 402 Cacciari, Christina 141, 142 Cameron, David 200 Cameron, Lynne 88, 90, 281, 284 Carroll, Lewis 109 Carruthers, Peter 57, 394 Cassirer, Ernst 258 Catell, Ray 38, 43 Centeno-Cortés, Beatriz 57, 58, 270 Changnon, Gabrielle 311, 323 Choi, Soonja 29, 32, 100 Chomsky, Noam 6, 7, 46, 56, 94, 111, 155, 156, 257 Christ, Herbert 258 Churchill, Winston 200 Cicero 87 Ciompi, Luc 211

Name index

Clifford, James 202, 207, 215, 258 Clyde, Monica 339 Coffey, Simon 200, 306, 382, 401, 403 Cohen, Elizabeth 312 Cole, Michael 62, 63 Cortazzi, Martin 357 Coulter, Jeff 129 Council of Europe 322, 346, 372, 374, 391, 392 Crapanzano, Vincent 216 Crystal, David 94, 156 Curtiss, Susan 270 Daiute, Colette 119, 185, 186 Damasio, Antonio 12, 31, 32 Danesi, Marcel 282, 284 Daniels, Harry 60, 72 Dann, Hanns-Dietrich 297 Davies, Bronwyn 193 Deardorff, Darla 311, 321, 383, 384, 386, 390 Deleuze, Gilles 219 Demele, Isolde 63 De Nooy, Juliana 364, 367 Dentith, Simon 112 Department for Education and Skills (DfES) 257 Derrida, Jacques 219, 220, 261 Deutscher, Guy 247, 279 Diaz, Raffael 57 Di Donato, Robert 339 Dirven, René, 69, 94, 253 Doherty, Martin 129 Dolitsky, Marlene 57 Donato, Richard 170, 339 Doyé, Peter 178 Du Gay, Paul 122, 123 Düz, Birkan 197 Duranti, Alessandro 99, 118, 204, 258 During, Simon 18, 50, 65, 77, 129, 144, 181, 207, 226, 243, 298, 315, 350, 361 Eagleton, Terry 203, 204 Eckensberger, Lutz 306 Eckert, Penelope 53 Edmondson, Willis 44, 313 Eggins, Suzanne 130, 152, 162 Einstein, Albert 95 Elias, Norbert 25

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Ellis, Rod 273, 275 Elman, Jeffrey 75 Engeström, Yrjö, 167–171, 222 Fairclough, Norman 123, 154, 163, 164, 290 Fantini, Alvino 317, 391 Fauconnier, Giles 11, 43, 69, 80, 88, 104, 133–135, 137–140, 142, 144, 281, 404–407 Feilke, Helmuth 172, 224 Fernyhough, Charles 56 Fillmore, Charles 79–81 Fine, Howard 89 Fleming, Mike 10, 158, 309 Fodor, Jerry 94, 257 Foster-Cohen, Susan 39 Foucault, Michel 16, 115, 125, 126, 175, 177, 207, 219, 290 Frank, Roslyn 83 Frege, Gottlob 147, 149 Freud, Sigmund 215 Friedman, Jonathan 180, 181 Frost, Robert 89 Frow, John 116–118, 154, 155, 290, 291 Fuchs, Martin 188 Furnham, Adrian 363 Furstenberg, Gilberte 365, 366 Gadamer, Hans-Georg 130–132, 243, 257, 258, 297, 396 Gallagher, Shaun 36 Ganz, Alexander 323 Garfinkel, Harold 160 Garnham, Alan 98 Gee, James 122, 182, 292 Geertz, Clifford 207, 210, 215, 216, 258, 260, 397 Geis, Michael 272 Gergen, Kenneth 14, 35, 90, 120, 177 Gergen, Mary 14, 35, 90, 120, 177 Gibbs, Raymond 97, 281 Gilette, Jane 41 Gillett, Grant 31, 67 Glaessner, Barbara 57 Gleitman, Lila 42 Goddard, Cliff 253, 254 Göbel, Kerstin 316, 386, 387 Göller, Thomas 204, 294

438 | Name index Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von 265 Goffman, Erving 131, 132, 207 Gogolin, Ingrid 327 Goode, Matthew 314 Goodwin, Charles 118 Gramling, David 360 Greenfield, Patricia 41 Grice, Paul 23, 152–155, 159, 168 Grindstaff, Laura 206, 207 Grotjahn, Rüdiger 297 Grünewald, Andreas 388 Guasti, Maria Theresa 38, 41 Guest, Michael 356 Gumperz, John 155, 157, 158, 189 Gutmann, Amy 242 Hacking, Ian 14, 24, 292 Haerle, Birgit 344 Häussermann, Ulrich 340 Hallet, Wolfgang 342 Halliday, Michael 7, 69, 269, 291, 396 Hall, John R., 206, 207 Hall, Stuart 261 Hamann, Johann Georg 94 Hammer, Mitchell 315 Hanks, William 118 Hanna, Barbara 364, 367 Hansen, Kit 272 Harden, Theo 1, 257, 298 Harlow, Linda 272 Harré, Rom 14, 31, 61, 67, 75, 106, 108, 124, 127, 177, 179, 180, 193, 397 Harris, Ray 56 Hartmann, Dirk 263 Hashemian, Mahmood 282 Haslett, Beth 42 Hausmann, Raoul 109 Heath, Shirley 39, 329–331, 344 Heine, Heinrich 247 Herder, Johann Gottfried 94 Hesse, Hermann-Günter 316, 386, 387 Hess, Hans-Werner 205, 294 Hinton, Perry 345, 346 Hitler, Adolf 318 Hörning, Karl 225 Hoffman, Eva 379–382, 403, 404 Hofmann, Michael 249 Hollinger, David 239

Holmes, James 278 Holquist, Michael 112 Homer, Bruce 63 House, Juliane 313, 358 Humboldt, Wilhelm von 94, 95, 397 Hunfeld, Hans 271 Huntington, Samuel 253, 254 Hymes, Dell 1, 7, 8, 46, 155, 156 INCA 387, 388 Inhelder, Bärbel 49 Itard, Jean 270 Jahoda, Gustav 62 Jakobson, Roman 7, 103, 149, 247, 272 Janich, Peter 263 Jauss, Hans-Robert 116 Jiménez-Jiménez, Antonio 57, 270 Jin, Lixian 357 Johnson, Mark 71, 87, 88, 90, 91, 104, 133, 222 Johnson, Marysia 341 Jonas, Klaus 85 Jones, Peter 52, 56 Joseph, John 177, 191, 195 Joyce, James 109 Kaikkonen, Pauli 347, 349–352 Kanada, Chizu 275, 276 Kaplan, Alice 333, 403 Kasper, Gabriele 160, 161, 168 Kay, Paul 99 Keim, Inken 189 Kim, Young Yun 266, 379, 381, 404, 408 Köhler, Dirk 1 Koehler, Wolfgang 141 Koester, Joelebe 204 Kövecses, Zoltán 68, 82, 87, 89, 91, 105, 141, 283, 284, 286–288 Kohl, Helmut 278 Kohonen, Viljo 313, 334, 335, 340 Kolb, David 68 Kordes, Hagen 327, 388 Kozulin, Alex 73 Kramsch, Claire 3, 12, 19, 37, 118, 130, 143, 175, 187, 188, 194, 232, 245, 295, 296, 305, 328, 334, 335, 337, 351, 356, 372, 397, 405

Name index

Krashen, Stephen 298, 299 Kress, Gunther 122, 342 Kristeva, Julia 219, 220 Kristiansen, Gitte 84, 189 Kroll, Barry 65 Kronenfeld, David 213, 243 Krüger, Hans-Peter 341 Krumm, Hans-Jürgen 344 Krusche, Dietrich 116, 255 Kuczaj II, Stan 40 Kukla, André, 14 Kumaravadivelu, B., 188, 227, 239, 253 Labov, William 286 Lacan, Jacques 219 Lakoff, George 71, 79, 81, 87–91, 104, 133, 135, 286 Langenhove, Luk van 124 Lantolf, James 29, 36, 48, 49, 52, 57, 58, 89, 227, 269, 270, 282, 284, 297, 298, 300, 390 Larsen-Freeman, Diane 182, 351 Lave, Jean 53, 302 Lefevere, André, 250 Lenneberg, Eric 102 Leontiev, Alexei 166–169 LeVine, Robert 210 Levinson, Stephen 32, 70, 158, 163 Lévi-Strauss, Claude 207, 218 Lippmann, Walter 85 Locke, John 94 Lo, Ming-Chen 206, 207 Low, Graham 284 Luckmann, Thomas 75, 76, 106, 212, 213, 268, 275 Lucy, John 97, 99–102 Lundgren, Ulla 141, 369, 377 Lund, Nick 39, 42, 74, 75 Luria, Alexander 61–63 Lustig, Myron 204 MacDonald, Malcolm 311 MacLaury, Robert 100 Madole, Kelly 37 Maffi, Luisa 99 Mall, Ram 232, 234, 242 Markee, Numa 160, 161 Martin, Dennis-Constant 186

| 439

Marx, Karl 168, 237 Massironi, Manfredo 142 Matsumoto, David 25, 203 McConnell-Ginet, Sally 53 McCormick, Dawn 170 McLoughlin, Incalcaterra 279 Mead, George Herbert 24, 180, 191–195, 199 Medina, José A. Sánchez 57 Mercer, Neil 18, 122, 125 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice 36 Mervis, Carolyn 77, 78 Messer, David 38, 46 Mienert, Malte 305 Miettinen, Reijo 167, 168 Mikes, George 326 Modern Language Association (MLA) 2, 3, 233 Montero, Ignacio 56 Morgan, Carol 346 Morris, Charles 149 Münckler, Marina 126 National Standards for Foreign Language Learning 322 Neuner, Gerhard 271, 362 Nezhad, Mohammad 282 Niemeier, Susanne 133, 280 Norton, Bonny 178, 304, 306, 329 Oakes, Lisa 37 Oakhill, Jane 98 Ochs, Elinor 183, 188, 209 Odlin, Terence 94 Özdamar, Emine 190 Oliveira, Roberta Pires de 222 Olson, David 63 Olver, Rose 41 O’Regan, John 311 Ortega, Lourdes 274 Ortiz, Fernando 251 Ortner, Sherry 215 Osterhammel, Jürgen 205 O’Toole, Fintan 136 Over, Ulf 56, 305 Owens, Robert 74 Paige, R. Michael 314 Papert, Seymour 14

440 | Name index Parekh, Bhikhu 4, 9, 67, 68, 202, 205, 225, 231, 232, 241, 260 Pascalis, Olivier 70 Pavlenko, Aneta 175, 184, 189, 303 Paz, Octavio 250 Pease-Alvarez, Lucinda 57 Petermann, Franz 37, 40, 46 Petermann, Ulrike 37, 40, 46 Peters, Ann 41 Phillipson, Robert 252 Piaget, Jean 35, 46, 49, 51, 52 Pinker, Steven 42, 44, 102, 103, 257 Pollio, Howard 89 Pol Pot 318 Porter, Richard 256 Potter, Jonathan 162 Pratt, Mary-Louise 217, 251, 252 Premack, David 129 Pütz, Martin 280, 282 Ratner, Carl 228 Ravid, Dorit 66 Reagan, Ronald 278 Reckwitz, Andreas 210, 238 Repin, Ilya 247 Richards, Ivor 87, 88 Ricœur, Paul 175 Ritchie, David 134 Robbins, Derek 180 Roe, Ian 247, 278 Rogoff, Barbara 226, 227, 230, 401 Rosa, Hartmut 183 Rosch, Eleanor 77, 78, 81–83, 286 Rose, Kenneth 168 Rowe, Deborah 65, 302 Ruben, Brent 314 Russell, Bertrand 149 Rutherford, Jonathan 238, 239 Ruusuvuori, Johanna 34 Ryan, Phyllis 305, 354 Sachs, Jacqueline 46 Sacks, Harvey 160, 162 Samovar, Larry 256 Saphiere, Dianne 362 Sapir, Edward 15, 95 Saussure, Ferdinand de 6, 110, 111, 114, 127, 217, 218

Savignon, Sandra 156, 333 Saxton, Matthew 47 Scarry, Elaine 35 Schlegoff, Emanuel 164–166 Schlinger, Henry 31 Schmid, Hans-Jörg 286 Schmid Mast, Marianne 85 Schmidt, Arno 109 Schmidt, Siegfried 180, 211 Schrauf, Robert 57 Schütz, Alfred 207, 212, 213, 294 Schultz, Emily 99 Schulz, Renate 323, 344, 384 Schumann, John 45, 76, 275, 276, 333 Scribner, Sylvia 62, 63 Searle, John 7, 23, 149–152, 159, 168, 172 Sebba, Mark 190 Selinker, Larry 273 Sercu, Lies 310, 386 Shakespeare, William 87 Sharifan, Farzad 226 Sharrock, Wes 129 Shields, Kathleen 404 Shirts, Garry 362 Shore, Bradd 83, 121 Shotter, John 14, 177, 258, 259 Shpet, Gustav 395 Sicola, Laura 280 Siegler, Robert 40, 71, 75, 78 Simon, Sherry 255, 277 Siqueland, Einar 78 Slade, Diana 130, 152, 162 Slater, Alan 70 Slobin, Dan 48 Spence, Donald 119 Sperber, Dan 154 Spink, John 73 Spitzberg, Brian 311, 323 Spivak, Gayatri 237 Stern, Josef 92, 282 Stetsenko, Anna 52 Straub, Jürgen 228 Street, Brian 25, 125, 397 Sysoyev, Pavel 333 Tabouret-Keller, André, 181 Tajfel, Henri 84, 188, 196 Tarone, Elaine 272, 274

Name index

Taylor, Charles 174, 207, 242 Taylor, Florentina 335, 336 Taylor, John 84, 286 Theodosius, Catherine 33, 128 Thomas, Jenny 150, 152, 153 Thompson, John 222 Thorne, Steven 29, 36, 49, 52, 57, 58, 227, 269, 270, 282, 284, 298, 300, 356, 390 Tolchinsky, Lilliana 66 Tomasello, Michael 33 Toohey, Kelleen 178, 304, 306, 329 Tripp, David 358 Truss, Lynne 65 Turner, Mark 11, 69, 80, 104, 133–135, 137–140, 142, 144, 281, 404–406, 407 Ungerer, Friedrich 286 Urry, John 181 Ushakowa, Tatiana 57 Uttal, William 31, 34, 134 Valeva, Gloria 282 Valsiner, Jaan 52, 60, 209 Vansant, Jacqueline 339 Veer, René van der 60, 209 Venuti, Lawrence 278 Verspoor, Majolijn 69, 94, 253 Vihman, Marilyn 38 Violi, Patrizia 82, 234 Volosinov, Valentin 111 Vygotsky, Lev 14, 18, 29, 35, 36, 47–56, 58–64, 70–74, 102, 107, 109–111, 166, 168, 227, 258, 268, 271, 273, 298, 299, 311, 390, 396 Waldenfels, Bernhard 244 Walker, Ian 86

|

441

Ward, Colleen 363 Warner, Chantelle 360 Watson, Ellen 31, 73 Weber, Max 294 Weedon, Christine 18 Wells, Gordon 13, 166, 269, 296 Welsch, Wolfgang 231 Wenger, Etienne 53, 302 Wertsch, James 40, 58, 102, 107–109, 395 Wetherell, Margaret 162, 164, 165 Whorf, Benjamin Lee 95–103 Wierzbicka, Anna 101, 253, 254 Williams, John 202, 313 Wilson, Deirdre 154 Winawer, Jonathan 101 Winkel, Sandra 37, 40, 46 Winsler, Adam 54, 56–58, 394 Wiseman, Richard 315 Witte, Arnd 1, 8, 11, 257, 277, 298, 312, 340, 359, 361, 384 Wittgenstein, Ludwig 1, 7, 15, 23, 34, 35, 68, 77, 78, 108, 109, 147–149, 159, 168, 227, 260, 286, 407 Woodruff, Guy 129 Woolfolk, Anita 383 Wootton, Tony 190 Yamada, Minako 132 Yoshikawa, Muneo 266, 379, 381, 382, 403, 404, 408 Young, Robert 196, 202, 234, 236 Zaimoğlu, Feridun 190 Zbikowski, Lawrence 135 Ziemke, Tom 83 Zlatev, Jordan 30, 36, 37, 83

Subject index abstract thought 1, 50, 62, 63, 83, 88, 187, 270, 280, 394 activity theory 23, 24, 166–169, 171, 228, 297, 400 addressivity 111, 395 affect 33, 34, 203, 210, 234, 268, 361 assessment 5, 27, 33, 101, 375, 383–387, 389–393 Autobiography of Intercultural Encounters (AIE), 372–375, 391–393 awareness 3, 8, 31, 37, 171, 179, 229, 265–267, 292, 293, 311–313, 315, 316, 337, 341, 344, 345, 348, 353–355, 367, 393, 397, 399, 404, 408 intercultural ~ 267, 316, 319, 323, 362, 378 language ~ 3, 145, 284, 317, 337 linguistic ~ 33, 309, 354, 355, 397, 408 metalinguistic ~ 65, 66 babbling 38–40 blending 25, 27, 59, 133–140, 142–145, 169, 171, 236, 245, 273, 285, 309, 319, 320, 354, 379, 399, 401–406 ~ spaces 1, 3, 5, 19, 20, 22, 73, 130, 133, 135, 139, 146, 156, 172, 233, 239, 246, 262, 303, 324, 337, 383, 400, 405, 406, 408 blends 38, 43, 59, 68, 69, 135, 136, 138–143, 145, 146, 195, 200, 220, 239, 281, 282, 404–407 boundaries 4, 6, 20, 23, 34, 78–81, 84, 117, 125, 214, 222, 231, 232, 239, 241, 262, 308, 325, 327, 347, 355, 398 categories 11, 22, 32–34, 37, 48, 49, 67–69, 71, 76–79, 82, 96, 99–102, 161, 171–174, 229, 234, 238, 240–248, 258–260, 327–329, 361, 368 categorization 30, 32, 68, 73, 77, 84, 100, 108, 188, 196 cognition 11–13, 22, 53,72, 83, 85, 102, 136, 161, 201, 224, 226, 236, 305, 354, 380, 395, 399, 400

cognitive development 4, 20, 28, 46, 49, 71, 270, 271 communication 16, 22–24, 35, 38, 52, 56, 85, 104, 109, 114, 130–133, 153–158, 204, 257–259, 313–315, 345, 354–356, 378, 380–382, 384, 399 community of practice 53, 181, 297, 302, 313, 334, 398 competence 3–10, 16–18, 37, 104, 117–119, 155–158, 217, 245, 264–267, 278–285, 308–311, 342 communicative ~ 7, 8, 23, 24, 104, 155–158, 265, 284, 368 cultural ~ 128, 139, 140, 217, 262 intercultural ~ 3–5, 8–10, 17, 18, 27, 145, 158, 232, 264–267, 305, 311–316, 321–325, 348, 356, 366–373, 375–377, 379–393, 399, 400, 408 linguistic ~ 7–9, 56, 92, 155, 156, 378 metaphoric ~ 26, 92, 93, 279–282, 284, 285 sociolinguistic ~ 45, 117, 156, 158 symbolic ~ 245, 296 complexes 50, 54, 58, 73, 74, 85, 115 concepts 4–6, 15, 20–22, 29, 50–54, 58–61, 66–71, 73–88, 93–98, 100, 104–106, 139–141, 143–145, 227–229, 234–238, 244–246, 253, 261, 268–270, 286, 333, 378, 404–407 everyday ~ 59–61 linguistic ~ 21, 135, 395, 406, 407 scientific ~ 58–61 conceptualization 14, 20, 29, 69, 70, 79, 80, 95–100, 142, 171, 239, 267–269, 275, 285, 351 conceptual metaphors 68, 86, 87, 89–91, 93, 133, 137, 279–285, 332, 405, 406 consciousness 32, 33, 36, 40, 51, 55, 60, 61, 139, 144, 166, 167, 224, 244, 354, 363, 386, 390 constructionist approach 5, 14, 15, 24, 259, 262, 296 constructs of self and other 21, 103, 112, 118, 204, 312, 407

Subject index

context 1, 6–10, 13, 14, 17, 19–24, 55–60, 62, 92, 105–110, 115, 116–118, 124, 136, 153–160, 163, 169–173, 175–178, 186, 187, 230, 247–249, 260–262, 289, 301, 317, 340, 341, 348–352, 355, 356, 365, 371–375, 379–381, 399, 407 contextualization cues 130, 136, 155, 157, 158, 160, 289, 290, 322, 332, 333, 355 conversation 10, 22, 23, 105–107, 111, 130–132, 152–154, 156–162, 164–166, 169, 172, 272, 392 cooing 38–40 critical incidents 279, 316, 323, 357, 358, 384, 386–390 Cultura 365–367 cultural ~ capital 178, 184, 306, 329, 338 ~ community 9, 16, 72, 80, 106, 201–205, 207–210, 213–217, 223, 254, 325–328, 404–406 ~ games 24, 323 culture 2–4, 6, 9–11, 18–20, 24–26, 116, 142, 176, 201–207, 209–211, 225–231, 240, 246–254, 262–267, 293–296, 314–317, 324–328, 333, 366–369, 398 ~ as matrix 9, 201, 203, 204, 396–398 cyberspace 308, 365, 372, 373, 376 de-centering 195, 303, 400 DESI 316, 386, 387 development 3–5, 38, 49–52, 58–60, 64, 70–75, 267–271, 274, 281–283, 296, 298–303, 306, 309–311, 315, 316, 320–324, 367, 404, 408 cognitive ~ 4, 20, 28, 46, 49, 71, 105, 268, 270, 271 conceptual ~ 67, 71, 73 linguistic ~ 43, 46 mental ~ 36, 49, 54, 58, 67, 102, 270, 299, 404 dialogue 26, 45, 112, 173, 189, 193, 194, 217, 231, 236, 242, 248, 249, 271, 302, 312, 324, 326, 356, 366, 380 diary 309, 323, 324, 391, 393 difference 15, 20, 237–242, 277–279, 284, 286–289, 291–294, 298–301, 314–318, 340, 344–346, 366, 386, 406

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digital literacy 370 digital media 308, 356, 400 discourse 9, 16, 18–20, 33, 108, 114–116, 118, 121–128, 130–134, 156, 159, 160, 162–164, 171–173, 177, 179–184, 193–197, 204–206, 208, 244–246, 262, 285, 292, 293, 340, 349, 376, 396, 402

electronic media 267, 323, 347, 354–357, 371, 373 e-mail 323, 348, 356, 371, 388 embodied 10, 12, 30–33, 135, 174, 178, 222, 224, 234, 272, 297, 303, 334, 344, 354, 395, 407 embodiment 12, 37, 83, 178, 214, 222, 245 emotion 8–14, 29, 31–37, 67, 76, 91, 128–130, 140–143, 211, 234, 266–268, 303, 309–311, 337, 374, 384, 385, 387, 392, 394–397, 399, 405, 408 empathy 130, 307, 316, 317, 350, 368, 377, 384, 408 enculturation 10, 129, 208, 291, 327, 394 essentialist 5, 30, 134, 177, 182, 202, 205, 249, 252, 255, 294, 301, 322, 387 ethnomethodology 160 evaluation 309, 319, 367, 374, 375, 383–385, 389–392 experiential learning 27, 171, 308, 309, 362, 363, 393

family resemblance 77–79, 286 fast mapping 40 feedback 43, 45–47, 57, 74, 275, 312 feelings 10, 15, 30–37, 138, 176, 202, 232, 288, 292, 312, 328, 344, 354, 376–379, 386, 393, 402, 406 folk theories 79, 81 frame of reference 3, 9, 130, 276, 303, 311, 316, 319, 320, 325, 337, 338, 348, 349, 357, 368, 369, 373, 377, 383, 384, 391, 393, 404 frames 5, 11, 26, 62, 68, 79–81, 130, 133–136, 139–143, 145, 146, 171, 196, 227, 248, 285–289, 330, 361, 368, 398–401, 403–406, 408

444 | Subject index genre 23, 65, 114–119, 121, 125, 127, 128, 173, 177, 181–183, 208, 262, 271–273, 290–293, 330, 364, 378, 379, 383, 396, 397, 399 gesture 23, 33, 40, 48, 67, 133, 165, 220, 278, 342 grammar 2, 7, 64, 96, 97, 146–149, 155, 156, 171, 218, 257, 258, 271, 272, 282, 334, 336, 395 group work 8, 24 habitus 22, 213, 223, 224, 229, 258, 333, 353, 354, 360, 361, 380, 396, 408 heteroglossia 14, 112, 123, 163, 183, 212, 220, 232, 234, 235, 250, 283 hybridity 195, 205, 233–240, 245, 255, 256, 379 Idealized Cognitive Model (ICM), 81 identity 3–6, 10, 24, 85, 119, 124, 172–196, 198–201, 205, 208, 232–234, 237–241, 263–266, 275, 297, 299, 301–306, 308–311, 320, 326–329, 332, 334–338, 362, 368–370, 379, 381–386, 397, 400–402 ascribed ~ 191, 198, 234, 304 cultural ~ 187, 189, 205, 232, 234, 237, 255, 297, 301, 302, 319, 320, 326, 328, 332, 376 facework ~ 179 group ~ 173, 180, 188, 189, 275 hybrid ~ 24, 174, 195, 198–200, 381, 401, 402 narrative ~ 184–187 national ~ 189, 198–200, 344, 401, 402 personal ~ 158, 173, 174, 176, 179–181, 183, 184, 186, 188, 196, 199, 243, 250, 301, 311, 354 social ~ 181, 183, 186, 188, 196, 255, 304, 305, 328, 334, 397 subjective ~ 173, 176, 308–310, 336, 391 infant 29, 32, 33, 35–41, 44, 50, 70, 78, 105, 176, 187, 268, 344, 380, 394 instructivist approach 13, 296 interaction 8, 13, 22, 32, 47, 49, 102, 104–107, 110–118, 124, 125, 128–132, 142, 146, 153, 155–165, 168, 173, 183, 194, 207, 208, 214, 222–224, 232–235,

264–268, 290, 293–295, 310–312, 328, 338, 365, 376–378, 390, 394, 396, 399–401, 404 intercultural ~ speaker 9 ~ sensitivity 27, 277, 314, 315, 320–322, 328, 387 ~ understanding 120, 232, 256, 257, 260, 263, 344 interculturality 4, 20, 25, 231–233, 237, 242, 244, 252, 368, 377 interlanguage 26, 272–275, 279, 296, 300, 306, 376, 391 interlocutor 3, 10, 11, 22, 64, 105–108, 113, 123–125, 128–133, 153, 154, 156, 159–161, 163–165, 183, 196, 208, 289, 328, 395, 396, 399 internalization 21, 31, 36, 47, 52, 53, 59, 71, 73, 106, 171, 186, 227, 268–270, 298, 311, 381, 394, 396 internet 181, 323, 333, 342, 345, 350, 355, 356, 363–367, 370, 371, 373 internet forum 363–367, 370, 371 intersubjectivity 14, 22, 31, 37, 128–132, 160, 164, 195, 232, 234, 244, 265 intertextuality 220 jargon 125 joint action 105, 129, 131 juju 116, 128, 146, 211, 292, 295 L1 acquisition 4, 45, 269, 323, 396, 404 L2 classroom 2–6, 10, 14, 19–21, 171, 181, 251, 279, 282–285, 288, 292, 298, 304–306, 308–310, 322–325, 335, 339–347, 354, 356, 358, 360, 366, 370–372, 389, 397–401, 403, 406–408 L2 learning 4, 5, 9–11, 17–24, 86, 103, 140, 143–145, 161, 170, 199, 230, 233, 246, 264, 265, 270, 274–279, 297, 302, 308, 310, 313, 322, 334–336, 341, 351, 382, 398–400, 402, 405–408 language acquisition 1, 28, 33, 36, 38, 43, 46, 47, 49, 64, 67, 71, 72, 161, 177, 211, 257, 264, 318, 402 language games 13, 23, 108, 109, 147–150, 219, 237, 260, 398, 407 learning journal 309, 323, 324, 347

Subject index

Lebenswelt 22, 73, 207, 210, 212, 213, 215, 217, 223, 246, 255, 256, 259, 307, 340, 360 life-world 6, 22, 25, 207, 212–215, 223, 246, 258, 261, 338, 340, 352, 362, 363, 379, 397 lingualization 5, 10, 39, 46, 208, 289, 291, 327, 331, 394 mapping 40, 43, 88–92, 105, 133–139, 142–145, 241, 245, 259, 280–285, 396 media literacy 342, 356, 370, 400 mediation 5, 12, 28, 68, 73, 107, 203, 222, 245, 254, 264, 300, 399 metaphor 26, 68, 69, 86–93, 98, 99, 104, 125, 133–139, 141–143, 236, 245–247, 266, 279–285, 288–290, 298, 330, 333, 338, 343, 405, 406 mind 5, 10–12, 14, 21, 22, 25, 31–33, 35–37, 44, 50, 67–70, 77–79, 82, 83, 94, 96, 102–104, 106–108, 128–130, 137–139, 144, 145, 200, 209–211, 222, 244, 247, 258, 263, 271, 303, 336, 377, 379, 394, 395, 397, 398, 400, 401, 403–405, 408 more knowledgeable other 6, 46, 57, 63, 73, 279, 281, 298, 304, 373, 376, 382 multicultural 178, 192, 231, 241, 246, 257, 305, 317, 325–328, 332 multiple identities 24, 196, 199, 301, 304 narrative 23, 45, 62, 119–121, 173, 182, 184–187, 194, 196, 237, 290–293, 330, 340, 378, 397, 401–403 negotiation for meaning 3, 4, 13, 18, 22, 295, 349, 362, 375, 378, 398, 400 ordinary language philosophy 147, 152 overextending 73 pain 15, 34, 35, 38, 91, 235, 277, 351 participatory appropriation 226, 227, 230, 401 plausibility structures 15, 21, 26, 38, 53, 59, 67, 75, 76, 122, 210, 266, 268–270, 303, 318, 322, 368, 372, 373, 376, 383, 396, 398, 400, 403, 405, 406 pluralization of identities 182, 402

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polyphony 112, 163, 250 portfolio 309, 323, 372, 375, 391, 393 position 4, 5, 12, 17–20, 23, 25, 30, 33, 108, 118, 124, 125, 128, 129, 160, 173, 176, 177, 180–185, 193, 200, 205, 232, 237, 238, 243, 249, 290, 302, 304, 335, 353, 359, 361, 381, 386, 388, 398, 403, 407 positioning 3, 18–20, 108, 119, 121, 124, 126, 127, 146, 172, 181, 182, 184, 193, 194, 233, 248, 263, 290, 292, 293, 302, 322, 332, 335, 339, 340, 349–351, 354–357, 361, 370, 372, 374–376, 378, 381, 383, 396, 397, 399–404 postmodernism 233, 239, 241 principles 2, 5, 21, 27, 74, 105, 118, 153, 155, 160, 166, 169, 183, 186, 225, 232, 291, 310, 313, 322–325, 333, 338, 345, 349, 354, 361, 370, 375, 383, 389, 390, 399, 408 project work 170, 297, 298, 323, 351, 352, 390, 400 protolanguage 37, 43 prototypes 70, 76–79, 81–84, 93, 120, 134, 232, 285, 286, 289, 396, 405, 406 reality 13–16, 22, 23, 29–31, 33, 49, 51, 53, 68, 73, 75, 76, 86, 96, 97, 100, 106, 121, 130–132, 137–139, 153, 173, 177, 185, 187, 204, 210–213, 215, 219, 221, 250, 263, 275, 288–290, 307, 328, 330, 334, 338, 341, 343–345, 355, 365, 398, 400, 406, 407 reflexivity 211, 306 register 16, 75, 114, 117, 124, 125, 149, 156, 159, 191, 272, 328, 332, 382 relativity 48, 93–96, 99, 101, 115, 258, 317, 318, 321, 327, 337, 354, 355, 367, 376, 397, 400, 404, 407 cultural ~ 103, 318, 354, 355, 367, 376, 397, 400 linguistic ~ 15, 22, 48, 93–96, 99, 103, 258, 317 role 15, 24, 53, 72, 84, 108, 119, 124, 138, 139, 156, 169, 184, 188, 192–194, 213, 271, 279, 281, 293, 298, 306, 340, 344, 350, 358, 395, 396, 403 role play 24, 171, 279, 293, 340, 341, 391, 393

446 | Subject index scaffolding 39, 42, 57, 281, 296, 298–300, 305, 314, 330, 356, 370, 372, 376 scenario 80, 115, 142, 144, 172, 217, 323, 331, 332, 361, 387, 388, 390, 392, 407 scene 69, 74, 76, 79, 80, 207, 330, 343, 359, 360 schema 16, 27, 36, 37, 79, 83, 84, 86, 91–93, 120, 135, 137, 157, 173, 225, 228, 260, 261, 285, 288, 289, 295, 296, 301, 327, 361, 378, 383, 396, 405, 406 self 12, 19, 22–24, 26, 31, 33, 34, 36, 37, 45, 53, 86, 104, 106, 124, 174–181, 183–187, 191–194, 196, 212, 232, 240, 259, 260, 262, 266, 297, 301–304, 306, 321, 335–337, 355, 370, 375, 380, 381, 386, 389, 392, 394, 397–400, 402, 407 simulation 171, 309, 349, 390, 391, 393, 400 ~ games 170, 293, 350, 357, 362, 363, 372, 390, 391, 400 simultaneity 123, 239 socialization 10, 22, 31, 36, 46, 77, 116, 149, 176, 178, 209, 224, 281, 291, 301–303, 306, 326, 327, 331–334, 377, 394, 396–398 primary ~ 117, 176, 301, 306, 327, 331–334, 355, 377, 394, 397, 404 secondary ~ 176, 178, 291, 302, 303, 327, 332 tertiary ~ 178, 302, 303, 398 sounds 35, 38–40, 49, 50, 64, 67, 82, 142, 279, 303, 334–338, 380, 381 space 3–5, 12, 18–20, 25–27, 72, 73, 80, 103, 105, 129–145, 161, 181, 190, 195, 213, 217, 229, 231–235, 237–246, 248, 249, 251, 252, 254–256, 259–263, 266, 281, 285, 296, 298, 303, 304, 306, 308–310, 320, 324, 332, 334, 337, 341, 347, 355, 362, 365, 372, 375, 376, 383, 395–400, 402–408 blended ~ 5, 11, 26, 72, 73, 103, 133–135, 137, 138, 140, 141, 144, 145, 235, 273, 279, 291, 296 generic ~ 134, 136, 140, 141, 144, 145, 404–406 input ~ 134–145, 405, 406 mental ~ 11, 22, 80, 105, 130, 133, 134, 137–140, 174, 349, 405, 406

third ~ 3–5, 11, 12, 18, 25–27, 103, 144, 184, 195, 214, 217, 231–233, 235, 239, 240, 242–246, 248, 249, 252, 254–256, 260, 261, 263, 266, 273, 278, 289, 300, 303, 304, 320, 322, 335, 341, 348, 367, 369, 371, 382, 383, 398–400, 402, 403 speech 1, 7, 8, 21, 29, 34, 35, 38–42, 46, 50–59, 64–67, 71, 84–87, 96, 107, 109–111, 113–119, 154, 155, 171, 269–271, 290, 292–295, 302, 322, 340, 345–347, 383, 394–396, 407, 408 ~ act 23, 149–152, 159, 171, 172 ~ community 1, 6, 9, 13, 38, 46, 51, 61, 67, 96, 117, 123, 148, 178, 269, 276, 290, 294, 302, 305, 332, 333, 338, 345–354, 356, 362, 365, 372, 373, 376, 378, 381, 392, 394–396, 401, 407 egocentric ~ 21, 50–54, 56, 57, 269, 394 ~ genre 23, 114–116, 122, 285, 290, 292, 293, 396 inner ~ 21, 27, 34, 51, 52, 54–59, 94, 270, 273, 276, 301, 322, 377, 380, 381, 383, 394, 404, 408 private ~ 57–59 written ~ 64 stereotypes 83–86, 120, 140, 191, 205, 242, 285, 288, 289, 294, 333, 334, 344–348, 352, 396, 406 storied world 23, 121, 187 structuralism 214, 217–219, 226 subjectivity 6, 10–12, 14, 18, 26, 30, 33, 37, 67, 136, 139, 145, 194, 216, 220, 232, 234, 235, 252, 254, 266, 301, 306, 353, 367, 369, 374, 375, 388, 392 syntactic bootstrapping 42 syntax 2, 21, 41–43, 45, 46, 50, 55, 56, 66, 67, 104, 108, 146, 233, 261, 267–270, 273, 275 tacit knowledge 61, 106, 117, 125, 132, 146, 147, 201, 217, 244, 252, 310, 397 tandem 28, 46, 281, 306, 323, 356, 357, 366, 371, 385 teacher 1, 6, 11, 15, 160, 251, 283–285, 296–300, 305, 308, 310, 312, 313, 321–324, 331, 335, 336, 338, 343, 346, 349, 353, 356, 359–362, 365, 371, 373, 375, 384, 386, 389, 390, 393, 398

Subject index

television 46, 47, 330, 342, 345, 346, 355 theory of mind 129, 130 third place 3, 5, 143, 232, 233, 244, 245, 251, 256, 265–267, 300, 303, 318, 319, 324, 363, 367, 369, 370, 376, 378–381, 387–389, 391, 399, 402–404 thought 1, 6, 11, 15, 18, 21, 29, 31, 35, 36, 40, 48–57, 62–64, 67, 70, 71, 75, 76, 82, 83, 87, 88, 93–97, 100–103, 118, 133, 147, 203, 211, 222, 240, 257, 258, 260, 268–273, 276, 280, 335, 337, 369, 376, 379–381, 386, 394–397 abstract ~ 1, 50, 62, 63, 83, 88, 187, 270, 280, 394 mediated ~ 52, 70, 394 unmediated ~ 394 verbal ~ 40, 49, 51 tools 1, 21, 31, 29, 40, 47–49, 51, 58, 70–72, 167–170, 219, 272, 297, 356, 369, 393, 394 cultural ~ 11, 21, 147, 298 linguistic ~ 1, 36, 219 physical ~ 48, 49 semiotic ~ 31, 49, 56, 169, 173, 175, 197, 261, 394 symbolic ~ 48, 72, 297 transcultural 3, 4, 231, 232, 251, 355, 388, 398, 402 transculturalist 231, 232, 239, 325

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translating 26, 34, 35, 245–250, 254, 272, 275–279, 306, 317, 376, 398 translation 3, 26, 30, 34, 99, 116, 181, 216, 238, 240, 245–256, 267, 272, 275, 277–280, 401, 404 underextending 73, 74 understanding 26, 33, 50, 64, 75–77, 83, 88, 89, 111, 114, 120, 129, 132, 134–136, 138, 156–158, 174, 208, 210, 212, 215–217, 232, 242–249, 254–263, 280–284, 286, 299, 306, 317, 323, 332, 348, 358, 367, 377, 386–388, 399, 405, 406 utterance 36, 37, 43, 55, 56, 92, 109–115, 125, 150, 154, 166, 194, 235, 236, 245, 270, 272, 274–276, 282, 289, 290, 293, 304, 313, 330, 334, 378, 395 virtual self 355 visual literacy 342, 343, 354 voice 13, 23, 24, 45, 110–113, 172, 183, 185, 191, 194–196, 217, 236–238, 245, 304, 305, 332, 337, 338, 340, 341, 355, 356, 372, 378, 379, 395, 403 word meaning 61, 108 zone of proximal development 10, 18, 27, 64, 293, 298, 299, 310, 390, 392